Mixed Messages

I’m con­fused. Just a bare few months ago we had Geof­frey Palmer, wear­ing his Law Com­mis­sion hat, rec­om­mend­ing dra­con­ian changes to our liquor laws, allegedly because of our “binge drink­ing” culture.

Then the Gov­ern­ment is said to be con­sid­er­ing rais­ing the drink­ing age from 18  to 20, despite the party vot­ing resound­ingly to oppose such a move at its National conference.

And just last week we had Steven Joyce announce changes to drink dri­ving laws adding even more con­fu­sion around the drink­ing age. Essen­tially the gov­ern­ment is say­ing that at 18 you can drink, but you can’t drive with any alco­hol in your sys­tem until your are aged 20 years.

This is all hor­ri­bly con­fus­ing. To make mat­ters worse the Gov­ern­ment admin­is­tra­tion select com­mit­tee yes­ter­day heard sub­mis­sions on the Rugby World Cup 2011 (Empow­er­ing) Bill which would make it eas­ier to grant urgent approvals for tem­po­rary activ­i­ties and facil­i­ties dur­ing the tournament.

So on one hand we have the Law Com­mis­sion say­ing we have a binge drink­ing cul­ture and on the other a gov­ern­ment enabling quicker licens­ing for booze premises for the World Cup.

Mixed mes­sages? I think so. Or per­haps there is a fair bit of lob­by­ing going on behind the scenes fill­ing the cof­fers of the lob­by­ists. Who would know?

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Tagged as: alcohol • Alcohol abuse • Alcoholism • binge drinking • Drinking culture • Geoffrey Palmer • Law Commission • Steven Joyce • the Rugby World Cup