THE PRESS WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1981. Any need for liquor poll?

Press, 2 December 1981, Page 24

THE PRESS WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1981. Any need for liquor poll?

New Zealanders first voted on the liquor question one hundred years ago. A national poll on the three choices — continuance, State purchase and control, and prohibition — has been held with general elections since 1919. The practice is certainly hallowed by time, but little else can be said in its favour.

It is neither a realistic nor desirable prospect that prohibition of the consumption of alcohol, enforced by the State, will come in on a popular vote. The vote in favour of prohibition rose between 1975 and 1978 from about 16 per cent to a little more than 22 per cent, of the total vote cast. It appears to have stuck at that level in this year’s General Election and the likelihood of it ever rising to a majority must be regarded as remote. Some opponents of the poll have argued that it should be done away with on the grounds of its costs. But the cost and inconvenience of running a liquor poll in conjunction with the General Election are not great and if the poll could be shown to be serving a useful purpose, the cost and inconvenience would be acceptable. It is hard to see what useful purpose the poll serves.

The poll is something of a charade, not because the prohibition option has so little chance of ever being carried, but because two of the three choices offered the voters are impracticable, even if they were desirable. State purchase and control of the liquor industry is seen by some to have its virtues. If profits are to be made from a trade which does a certain amount of harm in the community, it can be argued that the profits should go to the State, even though the present taxes far exceed profits. It can be argued, too, that the Government is likely to be more cognisant than companies of the social and economic costs of people being encouraged to drink, and so be less enthusiastic, and perhaps more responsible, about promoting liquor.

But. where is the Government that would be willing, let alone able, to buy out, at enormous cost, and then run all the companies involved in the liquor trade? It would require a sum of money that most governments would prefer to spend to achieve other purposes, and would entail responsibilities that most governments would prefer not to have to exercise. The Temperance Alliance is planning to push for the State purchase and control option to be dropped from the poll, presumably because it feels it provides a way out. for those with misgivings about the level of consumption of alcohol in New Zealand but', also misgivings about prohibition. The alliance is presumably calculating that dropping this choice will increase the vote for prohibition. This is a dubious calculation and, if the State purchase and control option is to be dropped, it should be dropped because it is impracticable, not because it might hasten the advent of prohibition.

Prohibition is, of course, an equally hopeless proposition. Total abstinence from alcohol cannot be enforced by the State on all its citizens, even if it were morally desirable to try, which it is not. The experience of the United States in the 19205, and the level of consumption of the “prohibited” drug cannabis in New Zealand today, should be evidence enough that State-enforced prohibition cannot be complete and can give rise to ugly social problems.

Many of those who vote for prohibition in the liquor polls surely appreciate this. In many instances, a vote for prohibition is less a vote for prohibition than an expression of disgust and concern about the effects of excessive consumption and abuse

of alcohol in New Zealand today. Almost the only virtue of the poll is that it serves as a triennial reminder to those who frame the country’s liquor licensing laws that a sizeable proportion of New Zealanders — those who vote for prohibition and some of those who vote for State purchase and control — are disturbed about the effects of alcohol in New Zealand.

The Temperance Alliance was looking to a “strong surge” in the vote for probition to tell Parliament that large numbers of New Zealanders are alarmed about the cost and extent of alcohol abuse in New Zealand. What the alliance should surely ask is whether a poll in which prohibition is unlikely ever to command more, that a quarter of the vote is the most effective way of getting this admittedly important message through to those who make the country’s laws.

The conclusion to be drawn is surely that the poll should simply be abolished. The difficulty is that no political party is likely to be willing to repeal the surviving sections of the 1908 Licensing Act which, with subsequent amendments, provides for the poll to be taken. A party doing this would be likely to incur the hostility of strict opponents of alcohol, numbers of whom could conceivably change their vote in a Parliamentary election on this ground alone.

The way out of this impasse could be for a party to offer a trade-off to the Temperance Alliance and its supporters, promising, perhaps, greatly to increase the resources of the Liquor Advisory Council and the funds available for research into alcohol-related problems and into ways of curbing the consumption of alcohol in New Zealand, short of attempting to impose national prohibition. Few would be likely to oppose this being done. No-one publicly disputes that there is a clear connection between abuse or excessive consumption of alcohol and social and family troubles, disasters on the roads, and other accidental deaths and crimes of violence. The misuse of alcohol in New Zealand poses very grave problems. These problems will not be solved by prohibition, but by careful, painstaking efforts to manage the use of liquor and to prevent its abuse.

The efforts must not be confined to the hotel industry, which works under public supervision and faces penalties for its mistakes or omissions. The outlets for liquor sales and consumption range far beyond what is commonly regarded as the liquor “trade;” probably very few of the people who have voted in favour of State purchase have paused to consider what effect this option would have on the distribution of liquor, whether it be from the vineyard gate, the workingmen’s clubs, or the local suburban wine shops.

The Temperance Alliance has said that it wants the liquor poll to stay. It should ask itself whether it could not'do its job better — and it is a job that must be done — if it were not side-tracked by a periodic poll which has, at best; a limited propaganda value. The alliance proposes to continue to campaign against liquor advertising, to emphasise the costs and extent of alcohol abuse in the community, and to work for' more stringent, enforceable laws against drunken driving. Even if some members of the alliance feel that prohibition is a desirable. goal, the body as a whole should ask itself whether pursuing a will-o’-the-wisp through a regular poll is a sensible course of action when efforts channelled into these other activities might have a much greater effect on the evils they are attempting to combat.