The NZ Alcohol Beverages Council (NZABC) welcomes the release of the proposed changes to the Sale & Supply of Alcohol Act 2012 (SSAA) aimed at reforming alcohol regulations.

“The proposed amendments signal a practical attempt to rebalance how local communities can have a voice during the licensing process while supporting responsible licence-holders’ right to trade”, said NZABC Executive Director Virginia Nicholls.

We welcome the additional safeguards around home delivery and online trading and hope the amendments to the Act mean the same licensing requirements that apply to in-store alcohol sale and supply, will also apply to online purchase and delivery.

While traditional alcohol sales are tightly regulated in terms of hours, location, and oversight, online sellers can currently arrange deliveries at any time of the day – including outside their licensed operating hours.

We also support any improvements to point of purchase age verification that make it more straight-forward for on and off-licenses to determine proof of age.

We are also in favour of the proposed changes that provide a wider range of zero and/or low alcohol beverages.  Currently there is only a mandatory requirement in on-licenses to hold low alcohol products, which can restrict consumer demand for zero products.

“This supports the flexibility to provide low-alcohol and/or zero [1] products to meet changing customer demand and gives consumers more clarity about the products they’re buying”, said Virginia.

There are other matters announced today that will take some time to digest and we look forward to the opportunity to learn more of the detail behind proposals once the Bill is tabled in the House.

Since 2010 the number of on and off-licences nationwide [2] have declined by more than 13%.

Its also important to remember that more New Zealanders are drinking in moderation.

The annual NZ Health survey [3] provides information on New Zealander’s health and wellbeing shows that 83.4% of NZ adults (five out of six of us) are drinking beer, wine and spirits responsibly. This is an increase of 4.7 percentage points over the past four years (78.7% 2019/20).

Hazardous drinking [4] or harmful alcohol consumption among adults over the past four years has declined to 16.6% (21.3% 2019/20).

The Stats NZ alcohol consumption per capita has also declined by 32% since 1984 [5].

“The majority of these changes focus on what actually makes a difference—having great operators who are backed by solid policies and strong ties to the community”, said Virginia.

References:

[1] Zero-alcohol beverages contain less than 1.15% ethanol and low alcohol products between 1.15% – 2.5% ethanol.

[2] Over the past 15 years (from 2010 until 2025) our on and off-licences have decreased by 13.6% from 14,424 (Law Commission Report February 2010) to 12,465 (ARLA May 2025) May-2025-Licences.xlsx, accessed 5 June 2025.

[3] New Zealand Health Survey | Ministry of Health NZ, accessed 19 November 2024

[4] Hazardous drinking among the total population.  Hazardous drinking refers to a score of 8 or more on the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT), which suggests hazardous or harmful alcohol consumption.

[5] Stats NZ: Total NZ population 18 years and over alcohol available for consumption (per head of population).  Year end 1984 (11.908 litres), year end June 2025 (8.006 litres): View table – Infoshare – Statistics New Zealand accessed 25 August 2025.