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notices and features - Date published:
9:52 am, August 7th, 2012 - 48 comments
Categories: alcohol -
Tags: lies, Peter Dunne
Last month, Associate Health Minister Peter Dunne told us “I don’t support a minimum pricing regime … a lot of the material that I’ve seen from other jurisdictions raises more doubts than support for the issue of minimum alcohol pricing“. Now, an OIA reveals the actual advice to Dunne was that the international evidence shows minimum alcohol pricing works.
I/S has the details:
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Last month, Peter Dunne gave an interview on TVNZ’s “Q and A”, in which he attacked the concept of minimum alcohol pricing, saying
I don’t support a minimum pricing regime as currently proposed… putting my hat on as Associate Health Minister for a moment, a lot of the material that I’ve seen from other jurisdictions raises more doubts than support for the issue of minimum alcohol pricing
Someone was curious about this, and used FYI, the public OIA website, to request this advice. Dunne responded with a collection of briefing papers. So what does this advice say? That
International reviews have concluded that increasing the price of alcohol is one of the most effective strategies to reduce the consumption of alcohol and, therefore, alcohol-related harm. Establishing a minimum price is a targeted way to reduce the availability of cheap alcohol.
The message is consistent across all the advice released. It does not just endorse minimum-pricing, it explicitly recommends its introduction, via a regulation allowing the Minister of Justice to set such prices at a later date (the delay being so they can hash out the final introduction details in light of moves in the UK). There is no doubt in any of the advice about the efficacy of the move, and no evidence at all from other jurisdictions raising such doubts.
Dunne mentions several other sources he recalls reading on the issue: the law Commission’s report on Alcohol and our lives, ALAC’s submission on the Law Commission’s issues paper, the National Committee for Addiction Treatment’s submission on the Alcohol Reform Bill, and the Drug Foundation’s factsheet on alcohol pricing. All of these explicitly support a minimum price.
The conclusion from this: either Peter Dunne doesn’t actually read the advice he was given on alcohol pricing, or he lied about it to please his booze-industry backers. Either way, I am not impressed.
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It seems common place now for these ministers to force their own personal views onto NZ society, using studies or analysys of others to support their personal decision.
The studies don’t even agree with them, but they don’t care, their burden of responsibility ends once they’ve made up their own minds, regardless of any fact at all.
They stand in front of the nation posturing pathetically, trying to convince us they’re thoughtfull human beings, when the truth is they’re all just slobbering for the money and don’t do any real work at all.
Our MP’s should be qualified to manage our society, not qualified to feed us bullshit with a smile.
Follow the US example. The neo-cons fund studies through tame academics and tame think tanks which say what they want them to say. And look where its got the US so far.
Like the BERL report, you mean? That’s where mike e’s figure below comes from, not fact.
BERL has one of the top analyst teams in the country. Shame the facts aren’t convenient for you, but there they remain.
Refer back to your original post..
The difference that you seem to be missing is that BERL is a commercial enterprise and not a funded think tank. This means that it actually has to give advice based upon facts and not twist the truth to give the desired result.
PR spin is this govt’s policy.
while alcohol does 5to 6 billion dolars worth of damage every year after year we are borrowing 13 billion ayear to subsidize alcoholism.
all we get from this
One must remember that Bennett’s benefit reforms are also based on studies, and much as I am reluctant to defend Dunne, he may have had reasons for not accepting these particular studies. A thinking person critically engages with a study and does not treat it as a form of catechism. Moreover, I would rather see the the left focussing on the more demanding task of delivering economic justice to the poor, not managing their pleasures or bad habits for the self-satisfaction of the better-off.
Here’s what he said Olwyn:
a lot of the material that I’ve seen from other jurisdictions raises more doubts than support for the issue of minimum alcohol pricing
When asked for the things he was talking about, he gave out a bunch of stuff that supported min. pricing. It’s not about rejecting the advice, is about telling lies about what the advice was.
Or he can say that the material he has seen from other jurisdictions isn’t the material released under the OIA. Perhaps he “advised himself”. Minimum pricing studies are just like lawyers, after all
Yes I saw that. But he still may have found the support they gave for their claims unconvincing. In which case they would have raised doubts; as in “All very well, but there are a number of significant objections that they have not considered,” etc. Although if this was his response it is true he could have given a fuller explanation, and perhaps sought out other papers to cite.
Fine, where’s the peer reviewed doctoral thesis showing his arguments and proof.
We shouldn’t be governed by personal opinion but by facts.
I’d be very surprised if there was a knock down argument for something as relative and context dependent as minimum pricing for alcoholic drinks.
Especially when the evidence from numerous countries shows that minimum pricing works.
“Yes I saw that. But he still may have found the support they gave for their claims unconvincing.”
If so, that’s what he should have said. Then people could weigh up for themselves whether Dunne’s argument was more convincing than the arguments presented in the material mentioned.
But instead he lied to make it look as if the material agreed with him.
Oh cheeky cheeky
Oh naughty sneaky
You’re so perceptive
And I wonder how you knew.
If he even read the report, It’s just paper to help him spew words justifying his own choices.
The fact that the actual reports he handed over said the opposite of what he was saying indicates he didn’t even know what was in the report.
This post appears to be is confusing increasing alcohol prices with minimum prices.
This is what the Law Commission’s report actually says:
So ALAC explicity refers to a lack of data and explicity recommends further research. That’s exactly what Judith Collins says is happening.
From the Drug Foundation’s fact sheet:
The post appears to be a beatup by NRT.
The NZ Drug Foundation summary, “Let’s get it right”:
No recommendation there on minimum prices.
So the Law Commission’s report explicitly supports a minimum price. So does ALAC. Good. So, why did PDunne say otherwise? There were no doubts except just how much the minimum price should be.
Nice attempt at a diversion to Judith Collins though.
Everyone explicity says there’s a lack of data on minimum pricing and it needs more data and more research. Including Judith Collins, hence the link.
And as quoted in the post Dunne said: “I don’t support a minimum pricing regime as currently proposed…”
From Dunne:
So Dunne is saying the same as everyone else on this.
No he’s not. Everyone except Dunne is saying that they support a minimum price regime.
I don’t.
If you want people to stop fucking themselves up, give them some hope that society has something better to offer.
Making them even poorer is just a cruel joke.
Yep, another one of the reasons I want a space program.
How is it making them poorer? They don’t have to drink and studies seem to show that the poor generally don’t.
Poorer financially if they do want to carry on drinking, but also poorer in the sense of losing one avenue of relief in a grim world without being offered an alternative if they don’t.
And all of us poorer in the sense that our society becomes that little bit less equitable in yet another little way.
If you want social equity then you need to look elsewhere. The top 1% who happen to be controlling the flow of wealth (via their bought and paid for politicians) to themselves is my suggestion.
Well yeah, that’s exactly what I’m saying Draco.
People getting fucked up isn’t the problem. The problem is we have a society so out of balance that for a lot of people the best response they can come up with is to get fucked up.
That’s why he’s good mates with the hundred million dollar alcohol industry.
“Everyone except Dunne is saying that they support a minimum price regime.”
Wrong. Judith Collins says they are looking for more data and research.
And it’s been reported that several Labour MPs don’t support it.
– http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/7237511/Today-in-politics-Saturday-July-7
Congratulations, two of the most corporate and pro-alcohol-industry parties have a few MPs that do not realise this is a good idea. Possibly because they are boozers themselves or have been captured by lobbyists.
You still haven’t refuted that this is a good, reasonable, and politically popular idea.
It’s not yet known if it’s politically popular. What do you think the numbers are?
I’ve already made the point several times here (with quotes) that Judith Collins “on minimum price of alcohol” and the linked documents in the post say there is not enouigh data or research on this yet.
🙄 Why is this person sidelining the debate again?
🙄 Dunno rosy
or he lied about it to please his booze-industry backers.
Who’s lying? Dunne says:
And it seems to be an accusation that keeps being spread here.
🙄
Wow, Pete’s reduced to stealing my jokes. This was me, yesterday, when the issue of Dunne’s BS was first raised:
“This is a typical left wing beat up and it does the Standard no credit that you would allows this baseless Labour Party smear to be repeated.
Lying has always been UF policy. Peter Dunne mentioned it at every candidate meeting I attended and I won’t need two days to find evidence of that like I did with Asset Sales.”
Te Reo Putake, yesterday you were asking people here to join the Labour Party. And now you are (again) trying to spread smears and accusations of lies.
What sort of party are you trying to promote? How was it you hoped to encourage all the non-voters to vote?
The worst of politics is not the best of advertisements.
🙄
161 people can’t be wrong own goal
Ah of course. This is a Labour Party issue, not a Dunne First issue.
Goodo.
No, it’s an issue of commenters here making repeated false accusation. That one is associated with Labour membership recruitment does happen to reflect on their party.
Oh look! He said he didn’t say it, then he said it again!
Been hanging around lying weasel-wording politicians I reckon.
pete, are you saying that an avreage person reading what dunne said wouldnt get the impression that he read papers which said minimum prices dont work?
Tracey, this is what he’s quoted as saying (the whole section of transcript):
I don’t see how anyone would “get the impression that he read papers which said minimum prices dont work”. Do you?
And especially when you read the papers that have been linked to, most emphasis is on increasing prices through excise tax, and there is an accepted lack of data and research on minimum price effectiveness.
Dunne is being consistent with what is being considered and discussed in New Zealand.
So someone is trying to make a diss out of nothing here. And making blatantly incorrect accusations which emphasises the likelihood they were trying to smear rather than provide an honest criticism.
Like you didn’t know.
Of course all donations made under the election rules to United Future are ‘anonymous’ so we will never know .
Thats $25000 worth of anonymous. How convenient.
We all know how Banks who was publicly opposed to poker machines went out to obtain his anonymous donations from Sky City. So some of Nationals support partners have been caught out lying in their returns, are there others ?
Maybe Dunne read those reports through the bottom of a gin bottle?
A cheap bottle at that 🙂
Dunne protects the oversized profits and volume sales of the alcohol industry at the expense of ordinary society.
“Tweaking”? what a brave vision you politicians hold for NZ.
“Freibier” for everyone, except alcoholics. That about should keep the people happy, aye?
I am against the draconian approach, but addressing the root problem. That is nurturing immature mind sets in NZ society. NZ is a country, where children are in large parts not looked after and educated properly, but otherwise treated like “nanny” material for the rest of their lives. The media, politicians and so forth do it. You are treated like an immature idiot, so you must be “guided”, indoctrinated and fed the stuff that keeps t he economy going (commercial crap).
There is little preoccupation about what being a human really means, about what matters apart from earning your dollars, apart from stupid media brainwashing and what else. It is all consumerism, dumbing down and more. So nobody in NZ learns much to think for themselves, it is delivered to them what to think.
How can people with that predisposed situation and crap environment learn to make mature decisions?
They cannot. So let them be allowed to drink, get sick, vomit, and learn their lessons. Those that get addicted need intervention and support and can be helped. Those that do not want to listen at all will waste themselves anyway.
So by prohibiting or high pricing it will be solved? Ha, I doubt it. Get into home brew and other drugs, that will be the way.
The problem is there is no decent society to enjoy, hence drugs are the next best option to opt out of this shit. That is why people largely dring and drug to excesses, nothing else. Maybe hold a mirror in front if society and not only your faces?