Drawn

A ballot for one member's bill was held today, and the following bill was drawn:

• Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Harm Minimisation) Amendment Bill (Chlöe Swarbrick)

Swarbrick's bill implements a number of past recommendations from government agencies and advisory bodies which for some reason (cough big booze money cough) have remained unimplemented. One of these is to remove a special-purpose appeal chain over territorial alcohol policies, which is something I am wary of. OTOH, the way that appeal process works is by preventing the policies from ever coming into effect, which seems to frustrate the law, and general appeal rights such as judicial review remain. So this would mean that territorial authorities actually get to make a policy (which can then be judicially reviewed), rather than stopping them from doing so.

There were only 61 bills in the ballot today.

Stealing Member's Day

Today is a Member's Day, but instead of regular business, the government is stealing it in order to pass a bill under all-stages urgency to allow people to get pissed at the RSA on Anzac Day.

The government has known about this "problem" for a long time - at least since December 2015 when the bill was drawn from the ballot. They could have adopted the bill and passed it at any time. Instead, they're stealing member's time to do it, having let themselves run up against a purely self-imposed "deadline".

And that's how National legislates: ad-hoc, on the run, and under all-stages urgency. And then we wonder why our laws are so shit.

Conveniently, this also means that the government will be able to avoid a member's bill ballot again - and with the Keep Kiwibank and Official Information (Parliamentary Undersecretaries) bills due out of select committee next week, delay one by another couple of months.

Dunne on alcohol pricing

Last month, Peter Dunne gave an interview on TVNZ's "Q and A", in which he attacked the concept of minimum alcohol pricing, saying

I don't support a minimum pricing regime as currently proposed... putting my hat on as Associate Health Minister for a moment, a lot of the material that I've seen from other jurisdictions raises more doubts than support for the issue of minimum alcohol pricing

Someone was curious about this, and used FYI, the public OIA website, to request this advice. Dunne responded with a collection of briefing papers. So what does this advice say? That

International reviews have concluded that increasing the price of alcohol is one of the most effective strategies to reduce the consumption of alcohol and, therefore, alcohol-related harm.

The message is consistent across all the advice released. It does not just endorse minimum-pricing, it explicitly recommends its introduction, via a regulation allowing the Minister of Justice to set such prices at a later date (the delay being so they can hash out the final introduction details in light of moves in the UK). There is no doubt in any of the advice about the efficacy of the move, and no evidence at all from other jurisdictions raising such doubts.

Dunne mentions several other sources he recalls reading on the issue: the law Commission's report on Alcohol and our lives, ALAC's submission on the Law Commission's issues paper, the National Committee for Addiction Treatment's submission on the Alcohol Reform Bill, and the Drug Foundation's factsheet on alcohol pricing. All of these explicitly support a minimum price.

The conclusion from this: either Peter Dunne doesn't actually read the advice he was given on alcohol pricing, or he lied about it to please his booze-industry backers. Either way, I am not impressed.

All down to Dunne again

Last week, the government passed its privatisation law on the single vote of Peter Dunne. Now, it looks set to vote down a minimum price for alcohol in the same way:

Labour has drafted an amendment to the alcohol legislation which would introduce a minimum pricing regime.

[...]

But the Green Party and Maori Party also back minimum pricing.

That leaves United Future MP Peter Dunne with the deciding vote.

Dunne has previously stated he was unconvinced a minimum pricing regime would have the desired affect.

He's gone a bit further than that, tweeting today that "If Labour's minimum alcohol price amendment depends on my vote, it is doomed."

Which is sadly exactly what you'd expect from an MP in the pocket of the liquor industry. This is a guy who abuses his Ministerial position to bury data which makes his booze buddies look bad; of course he'll vote against real action which will cost them money.