Communities across Aotearoa New Zealand are mobilising against a government bill that would weaken local alcohol protections, expand alcohol availability, and silence community objections – all while investigative reporting has revealed the alcohol industry helped shape the very policies it stands to benefit from.
In March 2026, Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee and Regulation Minister David Seymour introduced the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Improving Alcohol Regulation) Amendment Bill to Parliament. The bill would limit who can object to alcohol licence applications, prevent licences from being declined when local alcohol policies change, expand where and when alcohol can be sold, and allow alcohol to be served in barbershops and hairdressers without a licence. The government framed the changes as cutting red tape and trusting adults to make their own choices.
Health advocates were quick to recognise the bill for what it is. Alcohol Healthwatch executive director Andrew Galloway told RNZ the package amounted to the alcohol industry getting a wish list of changes. Earlier RNZ investigative reporting had already revealed that alcohol lobbyists were given direct input on government health policy development – including the strategy on fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) and how the NZ$16.6 million alcohol levy is spent. A leaked cabinet paper showed McKee had reversed her earlier position on alcohol reform, shifting from a public health focus to an industry-aligned deregulation agenda.
The bill directly reverses reforms passed under the previous Labour government in 2023, which expanded community participation in licensing decisions. National and ACT opposed those reforms at the time.
Communities lead the pushback
The strongest opposition has come from the communities that stand to be most affected. Tiana Kiro, a 25-year-old mother from Glen Innes in East Auckland, told RNZ she grew up surrounded by liquor stores and does not want the same environment for her children. She described the reforms as putting profit before people. Kiro is calling for the bill to be scrapped entirely.
Kaupapa Māori provider Ki Tua o Matariki has been vocal about the cumulative effect of the proposed changes. Chief executive Zoe Witika-Hawke said the reforms would make alcohol more present in everyday environments, in communities where outlets are already concentrated in lower-income areas and access to health support is limited. She rejected the individual-choice framing, pointing out that alcohol harm is shaped by the environment – by availability, visibility, and what becomes normalised.
Witika-Hawke also placed the struggle in its colonial context. Pre-colonisation, Māori were among the few known societies that did not manufacture or use alcohol. She said alcohol was historically used as a tool of land dispossession, and the industry continues to embed alcohol into Māori identity. Returning to a state of health where alcohol is not omnipresent in communities, she said, is the direction whānau want and need.
Hāpai Te Hauora, the Māori public health organisation, reinforced the environmental framing. Chief operating officer Jason Alexander said anything that makes alcohol more accessible and visible will cause more harm, and that ki objections to licence applications would silence the communities most affected.
The evidence the government is ignoring
The scale of alcohol harm in Aotearoa New Zealand is not disputed. A 2024 report by the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research estimated the annual cost at NZ$9.1 billion – including roughly 900 deaths, 1,250 cancers, and tens of thousands of hospitalisations. Māori are more than twice as likely to die from alcohol-related causes than non-Māori, and Māori children are exposed to alcohol marketing significantly more often than Pākehā children. Te Whatu Ora estimates that 1,800 to 3,000 babies per year may be affected by FASD – roughly eight per day.
Meanwhile, polling commissioned by Health Coalition Aotearoa and the Cancer Society found that 76% of New Zealanders support limits on the number of alcohol outlets in their neighbourhoods. The reforms move in the opposite direction.
Critically, the evidence on alcohol availability is well established. Research consistently shows that higher density of alcohol outlets is associated with greater harm. Auckland’s Local Alcohol Policy, which came into effect in 2024, has already shown early signs of success – residents report quieter, safer neighbourhoods, fewer emergency visits, and cleaner public spaces, with full compliance from businesses. The government’s bill would undermine communities’ ability to pursue exactly these kinds of protective measures.
Industry fingerprints on government policy
What makes New Zealand’s case particularly instructive for alcohol policy globally is the documented trail of industry influence on government decision-making. Documents obtained by RNZ showed that alcohol industry lobbyists from the wine, beer, and spirits sectors were invited to contribute to the FASD action plan, given input on the alcohol levy framework, and secured meetings with health officials on New Zealand’s position ahead of UN meetings on alcohol harm.
Perhaps most revealing: when Health New Zealand’s website referenced a review of safe alcohol use guidelines – a sensitive issue for the industry given growing evidence that even moderate alcohol use increases cancer risk – a Brewers Association lobbyist complained to a Ministry of Health official, who then directed Health New Zealand to pause the review and remove the references. Seventy-one percent of New Zealanders believe the alcohol industry should not be involved in policy development at all.