Support for changes to alcohol law

If the reports are accurate (the formal release is 27 April), Jim Anderton calls on the government to act on the Law Commission’s recommendations on alcohol controls, which appear to include a call to increase the drinking age to twenty and restrict the availability of alcohol.

Leaked recommendations from the Law Commission, published by KiwiBlog appear to call for a 50 percent increase in the excise tax on alcohol; an increase in the purchasing age; banning the sale of liquor at off licences after 10pm; forcing bars and nightclubs to refuse to allow people to enter after 2am; and a nationwide closing time of 4am.

“However I’m not hopeful that with a Minister like Peter Dunne responsible for alcohol the government will have the vision and courage to support anything this brave.”

“This is a man who refused to meet with Doug Sellman who represents 450 senior doctors and nurses across New Zealand calling for changes to the law. But he was prepared to meet on numerous occasions with representatives of the alcohol industry.

“He said he didn’t meet with Mr Sellman or his colleagues because he ‘knows what they think.’

“So he had to meet with the alcohol industry on numerous occasions to understand what they thought?”

“A few weeks ago new figures showed that violent offending was up by nine per cent last year - an increase of twenty thousand more victims of crime under John Key's National Government. The police know, and so do the doctors and nurses patching people up, that alcohol abuse is a major cause of that increase in violent crime.

Three out of five people who were arrested are under the influence of alcohol at the time they commit the offence for which they are arrested. Even Police Minister Judith Collins admits alcohol is a primary cause.”

“The spotlight is on the government now to see if they will have the courage to act,” says Jim Anderton.

ENDS

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