Proposed changes would have reduced off-licence sale hours from 16 hours to 12 a day. Photo: ABC News / Mitchell Woolnough
The Salvation Army says it sees the harm caused by alcohol every day, and wants the government to revisit plans to tighten the hours bottle stores and supermarkets can sell alcohol.
A leaked cabinet paper showed the government scrapped plans to reduce the hours alcohol could be sold to focus instead on making business easier for the alcohol industry.
Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee planned to reduce off-licence sale hours - which are now 7am-11pm - to only 12 hours, from 9am, in reforms to the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act.
The leaked paper said that could have prevented 2400 violent crimes a year, but later versions of the paper showed the reform would now focus on reducing the regulatory burden.
Salvation Army social policy and parliamentary unit director Dr Bonnie Robinson said that came as a surprise.
"We don't know why we've ended up with a draft cabinet paper, which looks quite different to what we were expecting," she said. "Certainly, the alcohol industry lobbies the government and the alcohol industry does have a lot of resources behind it."
Robinson said the u-turn was concerning, given alcohol-related harm currently costs the country $9.1 billion a year.
"We're really concerned, if we're not going to take this opportunity to reduce harm from alcohol," she said. "We see the harm from alcohol every single day at our services.
"We know that we need to do more to reduce the harm from alcohol, so it will be disappointing, if we miss this opportunity to really take some steps that can do that."
The organisation planned to urge government to reconsider.
"We'll certainly be writing to the minister and urging her to make the reforms focused on alcohol harm reduction, in particular, if we can get back to that reduction of sales hours," Robinson said.
"We'll be talking to other ministers, because this is a public health issue. It's also a crime and family violence issue, it goes across a lot of issues that government is concerned about."
More than 20 councils across the country were working on their own local alcohol policies and, so far, three had come into force in Auckland, Christchurch and Hastings, where 9pm closing applied to off-licence sales.
Other councils had abandoned plans to embark on their own local alcohol policies, including Grey District, which cited the cost involved and threat of industry challenge.
Hamilton City Council ditched plans to change the hours alcohol could be sold, after receiving three appeals, including from Progressive Enterprises.
At the time, council said negotiations failed to resolve the issues and it abandoned its policy, after spending more than $200,000 on staff and legal time.
In 2022, Hamilton councillors unanimously voted in support of a private members bill, which aimed to put more controls around the sale of liquor.
Robinson said a law change reforming the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act to tighten alcohol sales would take the burden off councils.
"It strengthens the arm of councils, when they also want to make adjustments in their communities," she said. "Without that, each council does have to do that policy themselves.
"It's very inefficient in terms of lawmaking and, for smaller councils particularly, it can be very expensive for them to do it."
She said Rotorua was one example of a city affected by alcohol-related harm, because 60 percent of bottle shops were in the highest deprivation suburbs.
Those suburbs represented 11 percent of Rotorua's population, but accounted for one-third of hospital admissions attributable to alcohol.
"Behind those stats are real people, who are suffering, because they are being harmed by alcohol and addiction to alcohol," Robinson said.
"We do have the opportunity to reduce that harm. It's not going to eliminate it, but we can at least make some dents in that harm, if we do some really good reform, especially around trading hours."
She said evidence internationally showed reducing trading hours helped reduce harm, by reducing the availability of alcohol, particularly in vulnerable communities.
"The less alcohol is available, the less harmful drinking we have and the less harm from alcohol we have - the research is very clear on this.
"That's why we do need to protect these vulnerable communities. We need to make sure there isn't a proliferation of off-licences in them and we need to reduce the hours that the existing off-licences can operate, and that will reduce harm."
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