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Mixed Messages

by Whaleoil on July 29, 2010

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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  • robf

    Well they want to raise the driving age from 15 to 16. I have yet to see anything that says 15 year olds kill themselves more often that 16 year olds but hey lets raise the age anyway,
    The Government doesn’t want to look stupid to the rest of the world and the Rugby world cup is supposed to show case us to the world. But as soon as the world spotlight is off us, nanny Key will be back onto the social engineering band wagon. All this populist nonsense is completely ineffective and just designed to help a limp wristed Government get re-elected, by pandering to a knee jerk public reaction. In the fullness of time history will look back and judge it, for what it is, much like the 6 o’clock swill.