Travelling to a better place

Last year, the Labour Government asked the Law Commission to undertake a comprehensive review of New Zealand’s liquor laws to bring them into line with current behaviours and concerns.

The Law Commission released its first public discussion paper, Alcohol in our Lives, on 30 July, and Law Commission President Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey Palmer SC spoke with the Drug Foundation about the review’s progress and preliminary findings.

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A lot has changed since the introduction of the Sale of Liquor Act in 1989. Back then, we didn’t have the sophisticated environment for restaurants and cafés we have now. And while the proliferation of places to drink has had enormous benefits in terms of tourism and public enjoyment, it seems also to have contributed, at least in some measure, to the increased amount of alcohol we’re consuming and the mounting social and health harms that result.

At the time of its launch, Associate Justice Minister Lianne Dalziel said the review would be wide-ranging and fundamental, and the terms of reference given to the Law Commission were extremely broad. Rather than a patching up of existing liquor laws, this would be a ‘first principles’ rewrite of New Zealand’s alcohol legislation and policy framework.

Much of the work so far, Sir Geoffrey told us, has centred on recognising what the problem is. Why is it that 700,000 adult New Zealanders engage in binge drinking? Why do 20,000 of us each year get taken home in a drunken state by police or spend the night sleeping it off in a cell?

Preliminary consultations have taken place with key stakeholders such as the liquor industry, the addiction treatment sector, police and researchers.

Sir Geoffrey says, “One of the difficulties is that this problem has many different facets. The health effects of alcohol, for example, are probably worse than the general public realise. The World Health Organization has characterised alcohol as carcinogenic to humans, and I am sure many New Zealanders don’t know that. The medical colleges tell us we should pay attention to these health effects, because they are serious.

“There’s also the public order question. How can we prevent the problems that are brought on by excessive consumption of alcohol from flowing through into criminal offending, where undoubtedly they do flow into, if left unchecked? There is a whole question about how the night-time culture in New Zealand is organised and how people behave in it.

“Then there’s the question of how people drink. Do they know the effects of what they are drinking? Do they know how much it is safe to drink? Do they know the alcoholic content of what they are drinking?”

Alcohol in our Lives also contains key policy options under consideration that could underscore legislation to help address these concerns. The public and all alcohol stakeholder groups are now invited to provide feedback on those options to inform the Commission’s final report, which will be released in 2010 and make recommendations to the Government.

However, Sir Geoffrey is quick to point out that we should not put all our trust in law.

“The law can’t change the drinking culture by itself. It can nudge it towards a more responsible direction, but what we need is for people whose own choices are driving what is happening out there to internalise these problems and modify their behaviour.”

And Sir Geoffrey has seen what is happening out there.

As part of its consultation with stakeholders, Law Commission members have accompanied the police at night as they patrol difficult areas. It’s allowed them to witness firsthand just how the problems are manifesting.

The night he went out, he saw frequent fights, 17 arrests and a badly injured person too drunk to remember how he had been hurt.

He says we’re in danger of losing our dignity as a society.

“There is a developing habit of people drinking to get drunk. Then they throw up in disgusting circumstances, and their mates take pictures of them and put them on YouTube as if it’s some sort of right of passage to be admired. Well, we’ve always had youth problems with liquor – that’s nothing new – but what’s going on now seems to be behaviour of a sort that is actually different from what it used to be, and it’s a worrying trend.

“When you go through these places at 10 o’clock at night, everything looks orderly and wonderful and the great middle class goes home to sleep. But by 2 o’clock in the morning, it’s a zoo out there, it really is.”

Sir Geoffrey believes the problems really are worsening and that it’s not just that we have better understanding or reporting of what is happening. He says excessive drinking is an issue for men and women equally and that a new generation is now engaging in it with serious consequences.

“People need to think about how they are introducing their children to alcohol. They have to think what the effects of them as role models are. They have to think about parenting and about a whole range of things that they tend not to be thinking about, I’m afraid. Children learn by example, and some of the examples are not good.”

He also says that, as a society, we aren’t equipped to deal with the alcohol problem. He talks of huge gaps in addiction interventions in New Zealand and says there is a dramatic lack of co-ordinated effort in the treatment area that needs to be addressed.

“District Court judges have told us there are no facilities to which they can send repeat drunk-drivers. There are no facilities for short interventions, which are often needed for the person to own their own problem. Long-term treatment facilities are very scarce and quite badly distributed, so far as the public is concerned.”

He concedes, however, that improving treatment options is another area where the law can’t wave a magic wand and get rid of troubles overnight.

So, if legislation can’t work miracles or radically change our drinking culture, what role can it play?

Sir Geoffrey says the law can regulate. It can control who gets a licence and when, where and what they can sell. In doing so, it can make a significant contribution to change.

There are a few legislative levers available, and the first of these is raising the price of alcohol, which, the evidence suggests, will lead to decreased consumption. The Law Commission is keeping a close eye on Scotland, where a minimum price per unit of alcohol is being investigated. This may help solve a lot of the problems associated with young people and drinking, he says.

The other option to raise alcohol prices is by increasing the excise tax, which currently yields more than $800 million a year in New Zealand. The primary purpose of that tax is to minimise harms resulting from excessive consumption, but the Law Commission realises there is a lot of controversy over how far that tax can be pushed.

No less controversial is the matter of advertising. Does advertising increase consumption, or is it merely aimed at preserving market share for brands, as is contended by the alcohol industry? It’s a contentious issue, says Sir Geoffrey, because the research isn’t entirely clear, and important free speech issues are involved.

“Businesses, like anyone else, have the freedom to impart their information, and that freedom is protected by the law. So the question is whether there need to be further controls on advertising than those that currently exist and, if so, what they should be.”

He also points out the benefits the alcohol industry has brought to New Zealand in that it employs a lot of people and makes a significant contribution to export earnings. He says the industry has been extremely obliging with the Law Commission by helping it understand the dynamics of the market and how its advertising works.

“There is no point in trying to demonise the alcohol industry. That industry responds to public demand, and it is the public that is responsible, not the industry. While there have to be curbs, we have to be sure we don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.”

Greater enforcement options have also been suggested as potential solutions. These include reducing the blood alcohol content limit for drivers to .05, as they have done in Australia, and introducing spot fines for people drunk in a public place.

“This would mean people who have to be taken home by the police are actually paying something for that, because, at the moment, the police are operating an enormous free taxi service all round New Zealand.”

While there is evidence that lowering the drinking age to 18 has had some adverse effects, particularly amongst young people in already vulnerable groups such as Māori and Pacific Island communities, he acknowledges that, in terms of public policy, this will be a hard genie to get back into the bottle. Perhaps some form of compromise is possible.

“We will be suggesting that a split age might be acceptable so that at 18 you can drink at supervised and licensed premises but you can’t buy from off-licences until you’re 20.”

The Law Commission is critical of the current Sale of Liquor Act, which allows pretty much anyone to gain a licence to sell alcohol as long as they can prove they are of good character and will comply with local resource consents.

Sir Geoffrey says the Act was set up in 1989 under the hypothesis that the amount of licences granted has no impact on consumption.

“There needs to be a wider but specific group of grounds upon which a licence can be denied. There has been 20 years of research since the Act came into place, and our view now is that, in some circumstances, on some occasions, in some neighbourhoods, it does make a difference to consumption.”

He personally favours continuing with the Liquor Licensing Authority, but thinks the scope of its powers needs revisiting to give local communities a greater say in what happens with liquor outlets in their neighbourhoods.

So, having specified what it admits are difficult issues and controversial potential solutions, the Law Commission is now in listening mode.

“We’ve reached the end of the first half of the review, which was, ‘What is the problem? What are the possible solutions? What is the relevant information?’ We now hand that over to the public so we can get back views, submissions and careful analysis, and so we can get both popular and expert opinion,” Sir Geoffrey says.

He cites prohibition as an example of why it is so important that the public is heavily involved in the debate about liquor laws.

“Public policy has to be generated by the public. You can’t pass laws that are unacceptable and that people will scoff at. Prohibition in the United States was designed to remove the harms from alcohol. It probably did improve people’s health, but it was not accepted by the public. It induced an enormous criminal industry, and you’d never want to go down that road again.”

To facilitate public feedback, the Law Commission will use a variety of means. One is the ‘Talk Law’ website where visitors can download a copy of Alcohol in our Lives, participate in forum discussions, answer quick surveys and send in online submissions or comments.

The Law Commission has been at pains to write the report in accessible language so both the media and the public can understand and debate what it says without needing specialist knowledge or skills.

The Commission will also be meeting face to face with individuals and interest groups around New Zealand to discuss the issues it has raised before it formulates its final recommendations to the Government in a final report in March 2010. Depending on Government decisions, it should then be possible to introduce a Bill to Parliament before the end of 2010.

But, according to Sir Geoffrey, even that new legislation – whatever form it takes – should not be seen as the end of the road. Though this will be a lengthy and thorough review, it is still one fraught with difficulties.

“Finding the right balance between freedom and responsibility is like walking a tightrope. You can fall off very quickly if what you are proposing isn’t acceptable to the public. It will take a long time to change the culture. I think in some ways this needs to be seen as a milestone on a journey.

“We need to be optimistic. We’re travelling to a better place – we haven’t got there yet, but we could.”

• Ross wrote this article, not really, Rob did

Counting the cost

Are arguments for an increase in alcohol taxes being based on substandard economic research? Or are opponents of a hike misusing an economics paper to make their point? David Young examines the controversy over the BERL report on the costs of alcohol.

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Before the Law Commission made any official recommendations on the future of New Zealand’s liquor laws, public debate had already started.

The independent provider of advice to Parliament on laws that need reforming, updating, or developing seldom attracts mainstream criticism. Its careful recommendations are generally backed by considerable intellectual heft.

However, the Business Roundtable’s Roger Kerr and National Party-aligned blogger David Farrar are among those who criticised the Law Commission, after President Sir Geoffrey Palmer suggested in a speech that liquor tax hikes could be up for discussion. Kerr and Farrar have based their criticism on the arguments from Canterbury University economist Eric Crampton.

The Law Commission was asked by the Labour Government to review all alcohol laws last year.

Palmer – Minister of Justice when the Sale of Liquor Act 1989 was passed – said, “The central issue is whether the pendulum has swung too far in the direction of liberality.”

In his speech on 24 April in Nelson, he made it clear the Law Commission will find that it has.

Palmer noted – as many experts in drug harm have pointed out – that alcohol would be classed as a Class B drug under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975 if it were treated on its merits. He said harm minimisation must be the prime object of any new law, balanced with the need for any regulatory controls to be efficient and effective.

Palmer outlined the “dramatic findings” of a research paper commissioned by the Ministry of Health and the Accident Compensation Corporation, Costs of Harmful Alcohol and Other Drug Use.

He said the report – written in March by private firm Business and Economic Research Ltd (BERL) – found that the total social cost of alcohol and drug misuse for 2005/06 was calculated at $6.881 billion ($4.794 billion was attributed to harmful alcohol use alone), up to 50 percent of the social costs could be avoided and half of all alcohol was consumed in a harmful manner.

Palmer concluded, “We have sufficient evidence to consider whether some of the costs isolated in the BERL report should be internalised to the liquor industry. I doubt that such a proposition will be met by great enthusiasm, but it does seem to me that the taxpayer should not be asked to shoulder as much of the burden as is currently being met from public funds.”

It appears this comment in particular attracted the attention of Crampton, who says he was surprised to see Palmer using the BERL report. From his first look, Crampton had concluded, “It couldn’t really be used for policy analysis.”

Crampton began criticising the BERL report and its use by the Law Commission on his popular economics blog, Offsetting Behaviour. He wrote a commentary on the matter in The Press, and eventually, with fellow economist Matt Burgess (Research Associate at the Institute for the Study of Competition and Regulation), published a 42-page referenced review of it. This effort was not funded by any outside organisation, but was enough to attract attention from reporters, bloggers and pundits.

What is the BERL report, and why has it become so controversial?

The Ministry of Health’s National Drug Policy Team Leader, Chris Laurenson, says BERL was asked to measure “in economic terms, the aggregate costs to New Zealand society… of the abuse of alcohol and other drugs.

”BERL was asked to provide costs of alcohol from the perspective of wider society and from the perspectives of government and business.

It was asked to look at what the Ministry calls ‘tangible’ costs: “the cost of consequences to the health and welfare systems; productivity consequences in the workplace and the home; crime, law enforcement and criminal justice; road accidents; fires; environment; research and prevention.”

It was also asked to examine ‘intangible’ costs: “the cost of loss of life, pain and suffering and the costs of consequences to the wellbeing of family/whänau.”

The Ministry of Health suggested BERL use accepted guidelines for estimating the costs of substance abuse that have been endorsed by the World Health Organization, which it did. The report was also subject to peer review from the co-authors of the framework.

Much of Crampton’s criticism is technical. He claims BERL has committed basic mistakes like double-counting and using multipliers inappropriately. BERL rejects that criticism.

But he also makes broader criticisms – and it is these that have been taken up by Kerr and Farrar, who oppose higher liquor taxes.

Crampton says the much-touted finding of a $4.8 billion ‘cost’ of alcohol is exaggerated and meaningless.

To put this figure into some context: in 1996, economist Nancy Joy Devlin found the cost of alcohol-related harm varied from $1.4 to $4 billion (although she stated she was looking at “a relatively narrow range of alcohol-related effects”). A year later, Brian Easton looked at social and economic costs and reached an eye-watering figure of $16 billion.

Crampton’s complaint is that BERL’s number is too high because it included many private costs in its study, which do not hurt society itself, so should have been ‘netted out’ to make the results meaningful.

One example he cites is reduced labour productivity as a result of alcohol consumption. Drinking too much will diminish an individual’s output at work. Crampton says that the reduction in productivity should be seen as a private cost, because an individual is less likely to get a promotion or a salary rise.

BERL argues that lower productivity should be seen as a social cost, because lower output will impact on colleagues, and even on society through lost taxes. It points out that “a computer does not keep writing by itself when you have a sick day. Nor may resources be freed up for others to use if a person turns up to work hung-over.”

Crampton criticises the inclusion of other costs that BERL has tallied, including the value of forgone unpaid household work, the production and distribution costs of alcohol and reduced output because people are away from work.

He also takes issue with BERL’s definition (which follows World Health Organization categories and Australian alcohol guidelines) of harmful drinking as the consumption of 1.8 pints of beer or more and BERL’s categorisation of all drug use as harmful.

BERL assumes that all consumption it defines as harmful is irrational. In economic terms, this means drinkers and drug users are incapable of realising that the personal costs from their activity are higher than the benefits. The economists also assume that those engaged in harmful behaviour obtain no benefits (such as enjoyment) from their actions that would counteract or reduce the costs.

In Crampton’s view, even a harmful drinker gains benefits – such as enjoyment – from their first few drinks that would roughly balance the excess costs imposed by later drinks.

Crampton’s arguments are similar to those he used in a review in the Medical Journal last year about Des O’Dea’s report on tobacco taxes. Arguing that smokers gain personal benefits from their activity, he commented that even though “one may suffer adverse health consequences from smoking, this does not mean that the smoker didn’t enjoy smoking” and said that the benefits enjoyed by smokers should not be subject to substantial discounting.

He also has concerns about the Drug Harm Index, published last June by BERL for the New Zealand Police. He hasn’t subjected it to a similar review, but notes that “it counted costs of drug enforcement regimes as a cost of harmful drug use rather than as a cost of prohibition and counted no benefits of consumption to users.”

He says he would be “surprised if the results of a thorough ‘fisking’ would not be similar to the results on alcohol, other than that there are no offsetting tax revenues in the case of prohibited substances.”

In the case of the BERL report, Crampton argues that a “policy-relevant report” should either count all the costs and weigh them against benefits (a cost-benefit study, which is a much bigger, more expensive task than the consultants were actually set) or count only the external portion of those costs, to identify the impact on society.

Crampton cites approvingly a report written by Felicity Barker of Treasury in 2002, which did what he argues the BERL report should have done: netted out the costs that fell on the individual.

Barker’s conclusion was: “In 1999/00, the amount of revenue collected from the tax on alcohol was $580 million. This is near the mid-point of the estimated bound of the external tangible costs of alcohol. Thus, the current rate of excise tax can be justified on externality grounds.”

Crampton himself attempted to net out what he sees as the privately borne costs in the BERL report. This involved reverse-engineering BERL’s numbers. He concluded this reduced the total costs of alcohol by 40 percent to $2,955.1 million, of which the “policy-relevant” net external costs of alcohol (basically crime, healthcare costs and road crashes) amount to just $146.3 million, or less than 5 percent of BERL’s $4.8 billion figure.

After seeking comments from BERL and others on mistakes and misinterpretations in his review, Crampton later reworked the numbers, and, instead of a net external cost, came up with a net external benefit from alcohol of $37.8 million.

In an online response, BERL says Crampton fundamentally misinterprets the study’s brief and, on this basis, employs an inappropriate framework for his analysis.

“The project brief was not to assess benefits, nor to provide policy analysis. The brief was to quantify the costs of harmful use of alcohol and other drugs using an internationally recognised method.”

Crampton responds: “It would have been pretty simple for BERL to have added in a section tabulating the external portion of costs while doing all of their other tabulations; it’s been a lot of work to instead reverse-engineer those numbers.”

For their part, the BERL economists criticise Crampton for using a “a nonverifiable argument”: that all drinkers are rational and, thus, if someone consumes a good, the private benefits must equate or exceed the costs.

“We would suggest,” write BERL, “that it is nonsense to argue that a drunk driver who wraps themselves around a power pole has made a fully informed, rational choice that is consistent with their long-term welfare and should be of no concern to society.”

The economists point out, as an example of Crampton’s “worldview”, that he had assumed drinkers would fare worse in the labour market, even in the absence of harmful drinking.

They also drew attention to his argument that “alcohol saves many more lives than it takes and has health benefits well beyond the point where BERL says harm starts and all benefits stop”, which they said was a value judgement that “would not have been appropriate for an independent study such as ours.”

Crampton rejects notions of being influenced by a particular worldview. He says the only “goggles” he uses to examine research are those of an economist.

All of this would simply be a relatively inconsequential, academic argument between economists if it were not for the political dimension: the Law Commission’s use of the BERL report in a speech suggesting higher liquor taxes.

From an economist’s perspective, so-called ‘Pigovean taxes’ are designed to internalise the external costs to society. If something has large social costs, there is a clear economic argument for taxation.

Recall Palmer’s comments in Nelson: “We have sufficient evidence to consider whether some of the costs isolated in the BERL report should be internalised to the liquor industry.”

Crampton claims – in arguments that have been echoed by anti-tax hike commentators – that “an underlying paternalistic argument [is being] covered in the garb of economics and presented as the result of the application of scientific economic method.”

He is annoyed that BERL has not publicly told the Law Commission that the research provided only a pure cost approach and couldn’t usefully be compared with tax revenue.

“While BERL does note in the report that their measure is cost only, it would be pretty easy for someone to miss that bit for all of its talk of ‘net costs’ and welfare.”

Since the public discussion started, BERL has not actually argued for its report to be used as a standard economic case for higher liquor taxes. Nor has it defended the Law Commission’s use of it.

Lead author Adrian Slack has commented: “In terms of forming policy… it gives you some direction on where are the biggest problems, where should we focus” and has noted that the report was not prepared for the Law Commission.

“As with anything that enters the public domain, it is the consumer’s right to interpret it as they see fit and for them to take responsibility for their reaction to it, not for the author to manage their response to it.”

At the Ministry of Health, Laurenson says that the report “makes an important contribution to understanding the cost to society of harmful alcohol consumption”, and it is using the report “to provide advice to Government on alcohol related harm and ways to minimise it.”

Crampton worries that government organisations “appear to commission reports with the purpose of lobbying” and argues that a ministry favouring higher taxes or a tougher regulatory regime would request a report that tallied all social costs, rather than just external costs.

And the Law Commission itself has stayed largely above the fray. Palmer recently told the National Business Review, however, that, on 22 May, he sought advice from Treasury and an independent economist on ‘issues’ in the BERL report. This, he pointed out, was long before the report by the two economists Crampton and Burgess (although it was actually after Crampton’s Press article and blog postings started.)

Palmer has recently expanded on his views about the economic case for liquor tax changes in the Law Commission’s public discussion paper. Its call for higher taxes on alcohol means this debate is only likely to get louder.

• David Young is a freelance journalist.

Tackling sport's alcohol culture

Mixing sport and too much alcohol has long been a New Zealand pastime. Kim Thomas looks at the challenges for those trying to break the harmful trend, and some initiatives offering hope.

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A few social drinks after the game – it’s the Kiwi way. But you know there is a problem with alcohol and sport when the players turn up drunk.

That was a common occurrence in Gisborne rugby league competitions a few years ago.

Tairawhiti Rugby League Association Secretary Sarah Leach says, “At the beginning of games, you used to have half the team drunk or out of it on dope.’’

Three years ago, the Association decided things had to change. It needed a new PA system and heard funding was
available from the local district health board – with a few strings attached.

The board gave them $5,000 for their sound system and administration costs on the condition they ban smoking on all club fields and in clubrooms.

It gave the Association more money in the second year of their agreement for banning drinking and drug taking from the time its parks opened to until games finished.

In the three years since signing the agreement, Leach says the Association has definitely kept its end of the bargain. The club uses its new PA system to announce its parks’ smokefree status, and Mäori wardens remind people who have smokes or drinks that they are not allowed.

The Paikea Whalers is the most compliant of all Tairawhiti Rugby League Association clubs. Leach says, before the agreement, virtually all players drank heavily and smoked cigarettes and marijuana. Now, only three players continue to smoke.

In the past three years, the Association has received up to $10,000 a year from the district health board, which it used to train referees and coaches, buy uniforms and equipment, and pay for players to travel.

Leach says the agreement was slightly easier to uphold because many of the Tairawhiti clubs do not have licensed club rooms and players usually went elsewhere for after-game entertainment.

The ones that do have clubrooms now open for a few drinks and speeches before encouraging players to go home to their families.

Leach says the scheme was not initially welcomed by many players.

“People were so against it because it wasn’t what rugby league was known for. It has a reputation for heavy drinking, drugs and smoking.

“We still get moans and groans, but we have to abide by our agreement.’’

Attitudes to sport and alcohol are hard to shift. The combination is ingrained in generations of New Zealanders, brought up with rugby, racing and beer.

The after-match function is often as keenly anticipated as the game itself. And while a few socials at the club can boost team and community spirit, they can quickly and easily lead to uncontrolled consumption, fuelling all sorts of problems.

Even at the top of the game, there are numerous examples of players’ dangerous binge drinking.

Think All Black Doug Howlett’s post-World Cup drunken car jumping episode or cricketer Jesse Ryder’s altercation with a Christchurch bar toilet window.

Alcohol damages young sportspeople and their communities too. Every weekend, young players are involved in brawls, drink-driving accidents or alcohol-fuelled domestic abuse.

Peter Shaw is a former policeman who now works as a liquor licensing officer for the public health team in Canterbury. He has seen his fair share of the down side of alcohol and sport.

Shaw says, at the highest levels of sport, players engage in initiation rites involving excessive drinking.

Many club members provide alcoholic drinks to younger players as rewards for a good performance, and drinking sessions in clubrooms often go on into the early hours.

Shaw says, with all the best intentions, good clubs sometimes find themselves flouting licensing laws and having irresponsible practices relating to alcohol, particularly with inexperienced or untrained bar staff.

In these situations, licensing officers try to work alongside clubs having problems rather than take a punitive approach. Shaw says this has seen most clubs improve their behaviour regarding alcohol in the past decade.

In Australia, authorities are applying a more co-ordinated approach to the issue in the form of the Good Sports programme, developed by the Australian Drug Foundation.

The programme has run successfully in parts of Australia for at least 10 years.

Australian Drug Foundation Executive Director John Rogerson says, in the past decade, there has been much debate in the media about top sporting heroes falling from grace after binge drinking sessions.

“A lot of the sports are looking at their brand and what the community is making of it because of players’ behaviour. You now get sports clubs strongly addressing these issues with the players. My concern around all of this is they are actually missing the point. What they are seeing as a player issue is actually the culture of sport, which supports heavy, binge drinking.’’

The solution is building a positive attitude to drinking at grass roots level, Rogerson says.

This involves educating sports management, the people who work behind clubroom bars, supporters and sponsors.

“There’s no point saying binge drinking is bad and then giving under 16s a slab of beer when they’re best on the ground. That’s not something that sends a real clear message to parents or players.’’

The Good Sports programme involves accrediting clubs at different levels to become more responsible hosts.

The first stage may involve helping a club get a liquor licence and understanding basic healthy attitudes towards alcohol.

At higher levels, it involves helping clubs develop a safe transport strategy and making sure everyone who serves alcohol is trained in responsible service.

The programme also helps clubs secure funding from sources other than the alcohol industry.

“We’re not kidding ourselves,” Rogerson says.

“We know the drinking issue is hard for volunteer clubs, which is why we’re committed to supporting them deal with it.’’

A recent survey of the Good Sports programme showed it had cut the number of drinks people consumed at participating Australian rugby league and cricket clubs and lowered the percentage of players involved in risky drinking by at least 10 percent.

A concept similar to the Good Sports programme was introduced to New Zealand in 2006 by Sport Canterbury, and named Club Mark.

Lorraine McLeod is the Club Mark co-ordinator at Sport Canterbury.

She says the programme is based on the premise that, in order to be successful and healthy, a club needs to be well run.

Minimising harm from alcohol is one small part of the Club Mark programme.

At the most basic level, it might involve help getting the appropriate licence for a club with a fridge in the corner from which club management sell beer, McLeod says.

“We ask them to have food available, not to serve underage people and generally encourage them to obey liquor licensing laws.

“Most clubs want to be good clubs, but the liquor licence is like a driver’s licence. They might have got one a while ago, but, like most of us, might not necessarily pass if we were tested on it today.’’

Good Sports was picked up by ALAC and ACC in 2007 and trialled in different parts of New Zealand.

Andrew Galloway, ALAC’s Supply Control Project Manager, says the appeal of the Club Mark programme was helping clubs minimise harm from alcohol and become more family friendly.

Disappointingly, the Club Mark programme did not work as well as its sponsors had hoped, he says.

Many clubs found Club Mark came with too much paperwork and had too many health outcomes to achieve, such as being smokefree, sun-smart, trying to prevent injury and minimising harm from alcohol.

“We got a bit lost in New Zealand (with Club Mark compared to the Good Sports programme) because we made it too broad and with too many outcomes. It became a bit of a box ticking exercise rather than focusing on the positive things it was trying to achieve.’’

ACC and ALAC funding for the Club Mark programme was discontinued after its first year, but some clubs, such as ones in Canterbury and Nelson, still continue with it and get alternative funding.

Galloway says, despite Club Mark being stopped, there are a range of other things being done around New Zealand.

ALAC is working with public health officials and organisations such as councils and police to ensure there is no dangerous drinking when thousands of people flock to watch World Cup Rugby games at venues around the country in 2011.

“If there was a free-for-all with alcohol, these places with hundreds of people, some of them hanging out there all day, could turn very nasty,’’ Galloway says.

A national working group has been set up for managing alcohol rules during the Rugby World Cup so places set up for people to watch games will abide by the same rules.

On a smaller scale, some clubs and organisations around the country are adapting their own initiatives – like the Gisborne league approach – to minimise harm in the sporting world.

In Canterbury, a group of police officers has developed a programme using senior members of sports clubs.

Constable Kerry Lancaster is part of the region’s newly developed police Alcohol Strategy and Enforcement Team, as well as being a keen sportswoman.

She has played at high level competitions in squash, tennis and netball, and her brother, Stephen Lancaster, is a former Canterbury Crusader. Lancaster and her colleagues are developing a programme called Say Now, which should be implemented in sports clubs around Canterbury next winter.

Say Now involves training respected members of sports clubs to impart positive messages about alcohol to younger players.

“It might be old school club member Bluey, who says to players skulling beer, ‘Hey guys, pull your heads in’.’’

The mentors will attend seminars and listen to a range of people such as recovering alcoholics or Super 14 and champion netball players who have got into strife with alcohol.

Lancaster says the programme aims to work on an unconscious level.

“The older players are often respected mentors but they don’t realise it. What they do can have a really positive or negative impact on younger players.

“Every year in sports clubs, you have a new set of young people coming through, so hopefully we can make a difference to a lot of people.’’

She hopes the positive messages about drinking will be extended to include “not going home and bashing the missus’’ or getting into street brawls.

The Say Now team looked at a range of different programmes, including Club Mark, before deciding on its scheme.

“Club Mark is a huge undertaking for a club. They need to have a person full-time running it, and only a small part of it is related to alcohol.’’

The Say Now programme requires little financial investment and effort from clubs, as mentors are already part of the organisation, Lancaster says.

Although the programme has been set up by police, they will fade into the background once mentors are trained.

“We are enforcement. It’s not appropriate for us to be seen to be involved in it. We want people in the clubs to take healthy messages on board about alcohol, so, slowly but surely, the culture changes for the better.’’

• Kim Thomas is a Christchurch-based journalist.

It's our loss

In the last Matters of Substance, we brought you the story of how the Cannons Creek community successfully opposed a liquor licence application.

Similar opposition by the small Christchurch community of Halswell has been less successful, but a strong statement by the Liquor Licensing Authority did send a warning shot across the alcohol industry’s bows. Lianne Dalziel was present at the Halswell hearing.

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I sat in the back of Courtroom 2 of the Christchurch Environment Court on 5 December last year as members of the Halswell community fought a valiant defence against the incursion of yet another off-licence outlet into their small suburb.

It was not easy for the two members of the community who appeared in front of the Liquor Licensing Authority (LLA) representing those who had signed a petition opposing the outlet. They had to personalise their opposition to the suitability of the applicant, which was not something they wanted to do. He was their local supermarket operator and a nice enough man – but it was a matter of principle.

He already had an off-licence for the supermarket to sell wine and beer, and the proposed bottle store would be directly facing an existing hotel bottle store. It was ‘enough is enough’ for the residents’ association that organised the petition and argued that supermarkets, venturing into hard liquor and using their considerable purchasing power, would sell cut-price spirits and ready-to todrink spirits (RTDs) to young people. They also raised concerns about ‘lossleading’ – a retail industry practice wholly unsuited to the sale of liquor and already allegedly occurring with the sale of wine and beer in supermarkets.

During the hearing, the Licensing Sergeant examined the applicant about his stance on ‘loss-leading’, and I think, to his credit, he admitted he would do so if forced to by competition. It was the wrong answer in a legal sense, but the right answer in terms of exposing the serious challenge commercial imperatives make to the objectives of the Sale of Liquor Act.

Although Halswell did not win its fight against this licence – it was granted for a year, and I know the community will watch what happens when it opens – they did win this strong statement by the LLA about loss-leading:

“We believe that the retail initiative known as loss-leading (that is, advertising and selling goods at less than cost, in order not only to attract customers to the store, but in the process sell more products) needs to be looked at moreseriously by licensees. If a licensee uses liquor to loss-lead, then he or she is stimulating and not meeting demand.Where liquor is involved, it is not good enough for a licensee to say (as they do) that they have to continue with this business practice because of competition.

“Most licensees understand they are dealing with a drug and that they have a duty under the Act to help promote the reduction of liquor abuse. In our experience, loss-leading helps to promote the abuse of liquor. In future, examples of loss-leading by an offlicensee will be treated as an indication of lack of suitability.”

The retail industry has been at pains to deny the practice of loss-leading, but this decision has finally shaken it into action. Foodstuffs wrote to me advising that, in line with its new alcohol policy, it will not be selling alcohol products below cost – although I note they still think that is OK when it is to get rid of obsolete or short-dated stock. It is extraordinary to think it is only the threat of losing its licence to sell liquor that has seen this result.

It isn’t just loss-leading that is the problem. The industry has huge discounting opportunities, and the stories of the market power they bring to bear on smaller producers are legendary.

As the LLA has highlighted, the very object of the Sale of Liquor Act is undermined by loss-leading, and it is time it was prohibited in law. We wouldn’t have to do this if the supermarkets had been responsible, but they haven’t been. Everyone knows that bottle store owners cannot buy beer from wholesalers cheaper than they can from their local supermarket and that some wine labels are no longer stocked by boutique wine shops because they cannot compete with supermarket prices.

I had thought the proliferation of off-licences was the major problem until it was pointed out to me the quantities involved in supermarket sales and the reduction in prices that occurred as a result.

The community is demanding that Government take steps to reduce the harm caused by liquor, so now that we have this admission from the supermarkets, the ball is squarely in the Government’s court to resolve this once and for all.

• Lianne Dalziel is the Member for Christchurch East and the Labour Party Spokesperson on Justice and Commerce.

Alcohol policy videos

To help inform you about the Law Commission liquor review and about alcohol policy more broadly we've produced these videos.

Alcohol in our lives - Sir Geoffrey Palmer

Alcohol and culture change: Current challenges and conundrums - Anne Roche

Change the ‘lock em up’ mentality - Ted Wilkes

Writing your submission

“We want to know what the community thinks, the community has to have ownership of this problem”. – Sir Geoffrey Palmer

Submissions closed on the 30th October. This is your chance to be heard and we really urge you to make a submission. You can send this by email to liquor@lawcom.govt.nz, make an online submission at www.talklaw.co.nz or post it to Liquor Project Coordinator, Law Commission, PO Box 2590, Wellington 6140.