Reading between the headlines

A few minutes ago I saw the headline “Drinking age back on MPs’ agenda“.

My initial reaction was a flurry of swear words directed towards the Government as I read “The National Government will look again at raising the legal drinking age from 18 to 20 this year”.

But luckily I carried on reading the article before I fired off venom, and it is not quite what the headline and first sentence suggest:

The Sale and Supply of Liquor and Liquor Enforcement Bill was introduced by the former Labour Government last August and has been picked up without change by the new Government. It is due to have its first reading when Parliament resumes and will then go to a select committee for public submissions.

Although the bill does not refer to the drinking age, Mr Power said he was sure there would be submissions asking for the age to be raised.

“You can’t have a discussion about the sale and supply of liquor without the drinking age being factored in,” he said.

So it is not the Government saying it wants to raise the drinking age, just the Minister saying that as we consider this bill, people will want to debate the age issue also. Power goes on to say:

Mr Power said he himself voted to keep the age at 18 because he believed the drinking age should not be dealt with in isolation.

“I sat on the select committee that heard submissions, and two things struck me,” he said.

“First, when the police came before that committee they said that in 51 per cent of cases [of under-age drinking] the last drink had been taken at home. That has stuck in my mind.

Simon gets to the nub of the issue – it is one of supply, not age of purchase.

The problem is not 19 year olds having a drink in a pub. It is 14 year olds getting wasted at parties. And the way to deal with that is to make it an offence to supply alcohol to minors in an irresponsible manner.

Criminalising every 18 and 19 year old in NZ (or the 95% who like to have a drink) would be a retrograde step.

However it looks like it may be an issue again, so might be time to reassemble the Keep it 18 campaign team!