Bottoms up to financial growth
Peter Kean, the Managing Director for Lion Nathan New Zealand gave a unique insight on Morning Report this morning into what happens when the need for financial growth detaches itself from social well being:
The beer market and the alcohol market have been very resilient. We’re not complacent about that but it is a positive trend. We’re in a market that often has said when things get tough people still enjoy a drink and they still enjoy going to the cinema. So there are a couple of things that people don’t tend to give up. And we’re I guess reasonably lucky that alcohol’s one of those things.
I guess the positive trend he is talking about is the record 470.3 million litres of alcohol consumed by New Zealanders last year. Cheers to a company that ’s aiming for double digit growth for the foreseeable future.
November 19th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
Yet another legacy of the Clark government: they’ve been driving people to drink.
November 19th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
Yep. Of course, that’s a result we can all be proud of.
Along with the collateral damage of an increase in domestic abuse of women & children, an increase in A&E admissions due to drunken accidents, and an increase in Policing costs due to drunken young men (and increasingly, young women) brawling in our main centres every weekend, as the clubs and bars spill them out into the street after closing time.
When do we get to nominate the Breweries to pay more taxes to cover the extra costs their “product’ causes to social services?
Just tell me which new Minister of the Crown to send the e-mail to!
November 19th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
Katie
Shall we put alcohol into the class A drug basket then and have a crack-down? I seem to remember the USA did that last century and prompted one o the biggest crime sprees ever experienced in that country!
Drowning ones sorrows has been a tradition of mankind since Adam threw the apple on the ground and Eve sucked it dry after it had naturally converted itself to cider! As for taxes, I think you’ll find the excise tax on alcohol is more than enough to cover the bill; indeed, I read somewhere (admitedly quite a while ago) that the taxes on alcohol and tobacco exceed the entire cost of the public health system!
November 19th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
Nope… but we keep it away from kids.
November 19th, 2008 at 6:57 pm
Wow! The same spike recorded before th 30’s Depression maybe?
You remember, when people had to sleep in the steets…and the Liberal Party was so shamed they changed their name to the National Party.
The kids round here dont realize that they ain’t drinkin chippie…
November 19th, 2008 at 7:30 pm
“due to drunken young men (and increasingly, young women) brawling in our main centres every weekend, as the clubs and bars spill them out into the street after closing time.”
So you are for raising the drinking age then?
November 19th, 2008 at 8:21 pm
That’s 470 million litres of alcoholic beverages, not alcohol.
And good luck to them. Don’t you just despise those tut-tutting neo-puritans always wagging their fingers at the rest of us like they’re so damn superior.
November 19th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
That booze should be classified as a recreational drug, although perhaps not an ‘A’ class one, should go without saying.
Unfortunatly politicians not scientists drive and create drug policy and the result is ignorance, bigotry and fearmongering.
The drug/poison Alcohol with its govt protected monopoly position causes far more harm and expense ( in health alone ) than revenue levied against it. I dont think we are quite as bad as Britian where their health service is in danger of being swamped or overwhelmed by a middle aged popultation of heavy drinkers who are now developing expensive alcohol related dieseas , it costs lots for liver transplants, dialysis, ……………… George Best anyone?
Here in NZ I recall reading that the new leading cause of surgery to reconstruct facial injurys in young males is Alcohol and the violence associated with its consumption, the leading cause used to be vehicle crashes ( no doubt a lot casued by alcohol )………… the news article in which I read this little snippet of modern New Zealand did not mention how many females needed facial surgery caused by drunk males ……….
But what we have with alcohol and its present legal but R18 staus is far less harmfull for us all than when we try to prohibit it.
Prohibition is like steroids for gangs and organized crime
………… and you’ll always need an extra 1000 police
November 19th, 2008 at 8:40 pm
I dunno… what IS the drinking age?
Actually I would be more inclined to penalize people who buy the stuff for their kids.
It isn’t a question I feel any need to argue. Let the social science types slug it out.
BJ
November 20th, 2008 at 9:26 am
Amazin’. This post on our most outstanding social problem sits at the top for 18 hours - draws 9 comments - well tie me to a hawg an roll me inna muud !
November 20th, 2008 at 10:08 am
Mark52 - Funny isn’t it? I am always amazed at what does and does not draw the attention of the blog surfers. Quite often though, the posts that turn into ideological spats, with the most comments, are not the ones that are the most viewed. We’ll wait and see how many eyeballs this post has drawn, but it may surprise us how many are reading…
November 20th, 2008 at 10:51 am
Dave S Says:
November 19th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
> Shall we put alcohol into the class A drug basket then and have a crack-down? I seem to remember the USA did that last century and prompted one o the biggest crime sprees ever experienced in that country!
On the contrary, we would probably be better to legalise some other recreational drugs which people might want to use instead of alcohol, but which don’t lead people to violence in the same way. Ecstasy would be the obvious one, but marijuana and BZP are probably worth it, too.
Also, a friend of mine who works for Alcohol Healthwatch reckons that banning the broadcast advertising of alcohol would help make people less likely to drink excessively. Of course, it should also be illegal to advertise any other drugs we legalise.
November 20th, 2008 at 10:56 am
there’s also a lot of potential to discourage the use of drugs without making them illegal, like we do with Tobacco.
November 20th, 2008 at 11:18 am
Why not legalise ALL drugs, but with a proviso that any medical treatment DIRECTLY attributable to drugs is not covered under the Public Health Service?
Pricing for excise tax purposes could be handled on a ‘per litre of pure alcohol equivalent’ (as I think all alcohol tax-purpose pricing should be), and the supply delivered through the same licensed outlets as alcohol. That would close down the gangs’ cash-flow, and shift some tax burden from income to expenditure (I wonder how much GST would be raised?).
November 20th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
The problem isn’t the drugs/alcohol, the problem is a lot of people leading lives in which they feel the need to get absolutely trashed on a regular basis.
And the bigger problem is a society which doesn’t see this as a sign of the failure of our social and economic systems, but as a policing and regulatory issue.
November 20th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
“The problem isn’t the drugs/alcohol, the problem is a lot of people leading lives in which they feel the need to get absolutely trashed on a regular basis.”
This from the party that wants to legalise marijuana.
November 20th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Your point, BB? Or is there one other than empty criticism?
November 20th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
No - it’s an attempt to hi-jack this into a discussion about mj.
Booze - Our No1 Killer, with daylight in second, third and forth places!!! The truth will set you free (if ya can take it)…
November 20th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
The truth will indeed set you free, but it will also piss off a whole lot of people on the way
November 20th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Cars kill alot of people too, but no one will give them up any time soon.
November 20th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Who said give it up? Not me…as for pissing people off ; well, har har har….the older I get the less I care - you just have to change lanes, or the TV channel to piss people off.
Concomitant with our boozed society comes an anger problem of gigantic proportions, go on, ask the next Cop you see - it’s true….
November 20th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
I would like to see the age for purchasing any recreational drug rased to twenty and the voting age raised to twenty also to stop political motivation to lower it. though the population is so addicted to alcohol that we would probally have to allow the 18 and 19 year olds to consume it on licenced premises.
The upside would be far less young teens getting alcohol, the downside would be even more 15/16 year old girls getting pregnant to 20+ year old drug f&^ked guys.
I agree that E, Cannabis, and BZP should be made legal as they do not create violent individuals; as i have said several times, there should be three classifications based on potential to harm others under normal and under excessive consumption and the legality adjusted as such. alcohol would of course be a class B, cannibis, E, etc would be C, and P would be A, and otally illegal, lol.
I also agree about the provison of alcohol to minors, should be more harsl punished, parents should not be able to provide their children with unopened drinks and not in sufficent quantity to get intoxicated, and underage people found intoxicated should be able to be fined or incarcerated over night
Shunda,
I dont drive, precisly because im so absent minded i would be likley to kill afew people each day, the majority unintentional, lol.
Also, I agree with sam, the problem lies more in societies uses of the drugs than in the drugs themselves.
November 20th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
Who needs drugs, the Ockers are batting and in trouble at 23 for 3.
November 20th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
The drugs will look a little better after the inevitable happens…for now, Southee will do as my new god.
November 20th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
Now 60 for 3 and eating lunch. No collapse. Yet.
November 20th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
6/139 Wat Son? Where’s the beer? Seeya in 5 days (or so)
November 21st, 2008 at 2:16 pm
“The problem isn’t the drugs/alcohol, the problem is a lot of people leading lives in which they feel the need to get absolutely trashed on a regular basis.”
This from the party that wants to legalise marijuana.”
It was me that said that, BB, not the Green party (Hint: My name is there, in full, just above the comment).
I don’t want to legalise marijuana. Keeping it illegal encourages a healthy disrespect for authority amongst many New Zealanders.