Rugby, racing and beer: MPs tackle NZ's holy trinity

It’s the 2020s, right? Yes, but this week at Parliament you may have thought it was the 1960s.

That’s because three dominant cultural forces of yesteryear showed yet again how they still hold sway: rugby, racing and beer. 

MPs have been making laws to enable access to alcohol at race days and during those early hours at pubs when the rugby world cup is being broadcast from the northern hemisphere.

The first of the two bills concerning the sacred nexus of sport and alcohol this week related to the fact that later this year the World Cup of men’s rugby will be played in France, a time zone where games are scheduled at times when most of us here are asleep or something like that.

Now, it's well established that people need to be involved with consuming alcohol in order to watch rugby. Pubs are often one of the few places people can get a chance to watch top rugby if they don’t already have Sky Sport TV. So if the game’s on during those wee hours when the pub is not licensed, that’s an obstacle.

The government has come to the rescue with the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Rugby World Cup 2023 Extended Trading Hours) Amendment Bill, presented by Justice Minister Kiri Allan on Tuesday.

“Time zone differences mean that many matches will be broadcast outside the maximum trading hours for pubs and clubs. For an event as important as the Rugby World Cup, we want to make sure that New Zealanders have options for enjoying live matches whilst also supporting the hospitality sector, and this is what this bill does,” she explained, adding that the bill is based on the amendments made for the 2015 and 2019 Rugby World Cups, which were also played in the Northern Hemisphere.

“The bill exempts eligible licence holders from the special licence process and creates a notification system instead, where licence holders provide written notice to police and to their local councils. 

“The bill only applies to current on-licence and club licence holders that have not had their licence suspended or cancelled in the last year. Extended trading hours only apply to premises that will televise a live match. Extended hours will be treated as the premises' usual trading hours."

Lifelong interest

On Wednesday night, further recalling the spirit of Rod Derrett’s 1965 classic record Rugby, Racing & Beer, another alcohol and sport-related piece of legislation, the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Exemption for Race Meetings) Amendment Bill, was up for its last debate before being passed into law.

National MP Ian McKelvie’s Member’s Bill exempts a racing club from the offence of using unlicensed premises as a place for consumption of alcohol, if booze is being consumed on its premises on the day of a race meeting. It's just a small thing, but fixes one area of the law which has curbed the enjoyment of a community that McKelvie has long been a part of. 

“As a teenager, I tried to train a horse. I've ridden a few, but you can tell I've never been a jockey—I wasn't built that way, unfortunately, or fortunately, whichever way you look at it. And I have had a lifelong interest in racing and have also been the president of a racing club—a two-meeting club, interestingly—and, as I said, have lifelong interests in the racing industry, the breeding industry, and all those things that go with it. 

"It's a very important industry for New Zealand, it's important that we continue to promote it, and I think that it's essential that we give people the opportunity to enjoy the things that my generation had the opportunity to enjoy, for much the same reasons that we're here looking at this bill now," McKelvie said.

These bills don’t just reflect the long-running connection between sport and alcohol - they also speak to who the MPs are as people. Well, at least some of them.

'Ad hoc approach'

The Green Party voted against both these bills. According to Auckland central MP Chlöe Swarbrick, after the recent defeat of her Alcohol Harm Reduction Member’s bill, the question of how to regulate use of alcohol and other drugs so as to best reduce their potential for harm remains unresolved. Yet, as The House discussed on this very day a year ago, this parliamentary term had featured quite a lot of legislation that fights for people's right to access alcohol.

This week Swarbrick noted that the Rugby World Cup 2023 Extended Hours Amendment Bill was yet another bill fundamentally about access and availability of "Aotearoa New Zealand's favourite drug, consumed by 80 percent of those of the age to do so, a quarter of them to really harmful ends".

"As this House has canvased many debates previously, we do have quite a problem in this country with regards to how deeply intertwined sports and alcohol is. What many speakers have actually touched on is the fact that we are seeing this kind of legislation become ever more frequent. I think that there is an inherent problem with that when we have a kind of predictability of what is fundamentally quite an ad hoc approach and as, actually, my learned colleague from the ACT Party just raised, the fact that this was tabled in lightning speed and that the House is now passing it just as quickly. To that effect, I think that all of us would agree that there is perhaps the need for some greater interrogation of the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act 2012.”

During her speech on the Exemptions for Race Meetings Bill last night, Swarbrick asked "why is this only applying to that one section of our society, given that we tend to see criminalisation of substances occurring for other types of communities?"

“There is an imputed sense of responsibility, as well, that we're hearing and many speakers have also spoken to with regard to the kinds of environments that a race meet provides - that is: a sense of community and that we're looking after each other in other ways. And to that effect, I'd say why can't we apply that same logical consistency to other substances - for example, when we're looking at cannabis legalisation and control?”

McKelvie’s bill went to a conscience vote. As well as the Green Party, roughly half of the Labour Party including Prime Minister Chris Hipkins voted against the Bill. However it ultimately passed by 74 votes to 43 - another vestige of the Kiwi way of life safely secured, at least for now.

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