Andrew Galloway: Alcohol Healthwatch CEO on the slipping standards for online alcohol delivery

It’s becoming easier to order alcohol online, with fewer checks being conducted. 

New research from Alcohol Healthwatch suggests 73% of orders are being delivered without ID being checked, and 49% were contactless deliveries. 

In some instances, it’s arriving on doorsteps within 17 minutes. 

CEO Andrew Galloway told Mike Hosking that the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act 2012 was developed for a brick-and-mortar style arrangement. 

He says that New Zealand has high levels of harm as a result of alcohol, and so the regulations need to be adjusted to better suit online orders. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Research from our are You really Surprised? File? Seventy three
percent of online Booze orders are being delivered without ID
being checked. In some instances, it's arriving on the doorsteps
within seventeen minutes. Alcohol Health Watch Executive director Andrew Galloway
is with us on this.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Andrew, Good morning, bdding Mike, how are you very well?

Speaker 1 (00:17):
Thank you? Seventeen minutes is actually good because if you
tried using a career lately, it's a miracle.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Well, you could look at it from a customer zero
stection perspective, so.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
Exactly seventy three percent. See, I got Booze to the
house ID, and actually other people did, but Booze came
to the house. This a number of times because we're
doing Christmas shopping right, no one checks and to expect
them to check as delusional, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
Look? Alcohol is in New Zealand's my typical drug, So
I think we just need to look at it from
that perspective as well. When the so unsplored Alcoholic twenty
twelve was developed, it was developed for a fucking more
mortar style licensing arrangement during COVID One of the other
I know we talked a lot about labor Day, but
during over one of the things that grew quite rapidly

(01:03):
was hard delivery for obvious reasons. When in Lockdown's almost
one in five reported using online delivery for alcoulture and
ovid And it's understandable, but that trend to keep have
delivery and continue delivery is health continued. So I think
when we look at some of these results seventy three
percent of alcohol, like you say, whether it without age verification,

(01:25):
forty nine percent contact list at the door. While you
could say that's pragmatic, we do have really high harms
from alcohol nine hundred one deaths per year, twenty nine
thousand hospitalizations, one hundred and thirty thousand acc claims. So
it's not without alcohol and it's not an ordinary commodity.
All we're saying. Really the recommendation from this is we

(01:47):
probably need to look at the regulations with the developed
with the y But how would.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
You do that though, because it's like going online and
ordering in the first place. Are you over eighteen? Click yes,
whether you are or not, it'slight the Australians thinking they're
going to bean on sixteen year olds from social media.
Are you over sixteen. Yes, click you can't get around it.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
Correct. It's not a full proof system with a click
box online. And I went on my remote delivery site
last night and it just is if you order, we
assume that you are. So it's I think they have
done it in many states. In Australia, neighboring jurisdiction put
time delays on when it is delivered. What we do

(02:27):
know from delivery alcohol is that it can extend a
drinking session. People can drink more than they intended to
and enterd heavier. So I think there can be some
simple things done just through a bit of regulation that
can reduce some of those harms.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
Then okay, Andrew appreciate it very much. Andrew Galloway, Alcohol
Health Watch executive directly. For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast,
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