Kilda. I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald every few weeks. It seems that we're reporting on a recidivist drink driver who is once again going through the court system due to their behavior. And there are still thousands going through the justice system every year. In fact, figures show that over fifteen thousand people were convicted last year
over driving under the influence. Now, a new survey has shown consistent support from New Zealanders to tackle drink driving, conducted by the New Zealand Alcohol Beverages Council. More kiwis are keen to see police issue on the spot finds for minor alcohol related offenses, while there remains high support for confiscating cars and use of alcohol interlocks. With this high support bought in place, what can be done to
get drunk drivers off our roads? Today on the front Page we're discussing how we can curb drink driving with Virginia Nichols, Executive director of the New Zealand Alcohol Beverages Council. Virginia, what was the motivation for this survey starting six years ago?
Well, I think the industry felt they needed to understand and get consumer feedback on their different feelings, if you like, around all sorts of different issues, and of course the industry has been listening to many of these through the years as well.
So your survey shows that there's quite high support for more to be done on drink driving. Seventy nine percent support confiscating cars for repeat drink drivers, fifty nine percent want heavier fines for drunken disorderly behavior, and fifty four percent want to use alcohol interlocks in cars to reduce drink driving. Are you encouraged by the high I support for these measures?
Oh, absolutely encouraged, and we support it as well. I mean we're very keen to actually strengthen think we think this very strong supporter there from consumers. We support it, and we think targeted interventions are the way to go.
How easy would it be for some of these things to be implemented? Are those alcohol interlocks in cars? Are those the things that you blow into before the motor starts.
Yeah, absolutely they are, and you can see there from the data. Alcohol interlock courts mandated orders have increased from two hundred and sixty two.
It's not a lot, is it? Back?
In twenty fifteen up to nearly four thousand and twenty and twenty four and so really what we can do there is I mean we could actually all wear meaning the courts could actually increase the number of alcohol interlock orders that they actually put onto people that are doing drinking and driving.
And I'm sure they'd be a cost involved in creating new laws and things like that, but surely that'd be balanced out by the savings on the court time and the stays in hospitals and all that stuff.
Hey, it's a really good idea.
I mean, these people are hazardous drinkers, They've got significant drinking issues. This is something we can do, we can strengthen because it is actually happening at the moment, but it needs to happen more. We think that we could be doing more with interlocks.
From the survey as well, fifty five percent of respondents support police issuing spot fines for minor alcohol related offenses. In New South Wales, a low level drink driving offense starts off with a fine of about six hundred dollars and three months loss of license, whereas here a similar offense would be a two hundred dollar fine and a deduction of fifty demerit points. Do you reckon we're a bit too lenient when it comes to these on the spot fines?
Look, I don't The survey doesn't delve any deeper into that there, and there is quite a lot of fines and things I know through our court system. I would need to investigate that a little bit further. But I certainly think this actually supports and actually supports heavier fines, and the industry is not against that at all.
For that to be reviewed, The Herald often publishes stories showing that someone is on their umpteenth conviction, they've been through all of this before, and they got home detention or fines or some brief spell in jail, but it doesn't seem to stick. Are we too lenient when it comes to criminal proceedings against drunk drivers? Do you think? I don't think we need to throw everyone who is over the limited in jail. But what do we need to do to hold more people to account?
Well, I think what you're referring to there is hazardous drinkers, and I think we've actually got to realize as well that we are drinking less and we're drinking better. With a move to moderation as part of a balanced lifestyle. And the annual New Zealand Health Survey provides information on our health and wellbeing. It shows that round about eighty three percent or five out of six of US drink
beer one and spirits responsibly. So it's an increase of four point seven percentage points over the last four years. And what you're just referring to there is hazardous drinking or harmful alcohol consumption among adults over the past four years has declined to sixteen point six percent. Now it's still too high and we still want that to be reduced a little bit better. However, we still also need
to realize this tats. New Zealand alcohol consumption per capita is also declined by twenty eight percent, and we drink below the OECD average, less than the US, UK, Australia, Germany, France and Ireland. However, hazardous drinkers, and I think the surveys that it tells us as well that we really support consumers, really support heavier fines for if a drunk and disorderly behavior.
We want more alcohol interlocks.
And I think what's important here too is alcohol education programs as well, so targeted support programs for harmful drinkers. I think will probably do more than heavier fines.
George's Jovi is too wasted.
I should see something, but I could look dumb in front of Monique.
Monique ses, you're dumb. But if he crashes, if the love of his family puzzle tip, and if he does, goose children avort me forever.
Chip.
You know I can't grab your gush chips.
What are you doing?
I've been internalizing a really complicated situation in my head. What do you want about? I don't think you should drive, na, No, you're two drunk free just crazy. As a country, we have these kind of big drunk driving campaigns every year. Do you think that those are having an impact? Things like those that ghost chips one for example, where part of our vernacular for a while was ghost chips. But it doesn't feel like they have the same sticking power anymore.
Well.
I think we've got to realize though, that we are as I say, we're drinking differently. We know we're doing that, and we also need to look at say, since twenty fourteen, the total number of New Zealand is convicted of driving under the influence, and this is both alcohol and or drugs. It has declined by twenty seven to send and so good. These are good indicators of what's going.
On out there.
However, we still need to do more, and I'm sure it's a balanced approach. It's a balanced approach with education, it's very important that we have a look at a whole lot of other areas as well. And part of that I think is going to be interlocks and cars, and I think alcohol, more alcohol education in schools as well.
Yeah, and those ads as well as part of that education, do they need to be a bit more brutal? I mean some of the ads that played in South Australia when I was younger were quite scarring. I still think about them.
I think there is a balanced approach here and I'm sure ACC and people like that that are doing those advertisements are actually I'm sure they're doing an awful lot of research around them as well to find what works, what doesn't work. They'd be doing them for quite a long time, so I think, again, this is a many pronged approach. How do we reduce hazardous drinkers, how do we actually provide more education, and how do we actually
provide more targeted programs. Are there sufficient targeted programs for these people that are hazardous drinkers?
It's a health issue really, to be fair.
I saw the analysis done by STUFF last year showed that the number of discharges without convictions is skyrocketed in recent years. It was one hundred and seventeen and twenty fourteen, then jumped in twenty twenty one to four hundred and three. Then in twenty twenty three there were one thousand and
twenty eight discharges without conviction. Do you have any inkling as to why this is happening and are you concerned about this, because of course from your survey, a lot of people would be unsettled by that number.
God, I'm really surprised with those numbers. That is certainly higher than what I would have expected in the past, been very difficult to get a discharge the conviction for drink driving. So I don't actually know what's going on there, but those are concerning numbers.
Can you tell us a little bit more about the Tomorrow Project and what impact that's having on drink driving?
Yeah, I think that's really really important.
I mean, since twenty nineteen, the Tomorrow Project, it's a social change charity governed by Spirits New Zealand, New Zealand Wine Grows and the Brewers Association. They funded the Life Education Trust to deliver SMASH. It's a theater and education program for high school students that provides practical information advice to support better decision making. So I think really most of us agree that targeted education and support programs they
create a much better understanding of responsible drinking. That's a fact borne out by the fact that seventy percent of New Zealanders surveyed agreed that such program will reduce alcohol related harm. So all the research tells us is that earlier you start talking to teenagers about drinking, the less likely it is they'll become hazardous drinkers or start.
Drinking at all.
Which is why education for youth is really important. And since it actually started in twenty nineteen, to the end of twenty twenty four school year, the SMASH program has been delivered to more than one hundred and eight thousand students across New Zealand. This means it engages with about a third of year nine students in Aiti era, building on substance education that starts in primary and intermediate schools.
So what it does is we've got actors and things on the stage, and it provides young people with practical information on how to say no to alcohol or not drinking at all, what a standard drink is, in counting drinks, talks about safe drinking, binge drinking, peer pressure, better decision making, and availability of zero and low alcohol drinks as well, and independent researchers show that the programs supporting positive change
in youth drinking culture. So I think it's very important to get to our young people very early.
How can we be upset with a player that's trying to teach kids how to drink responsibly. Well, first and foremost, they don't define what drinking responsibily is. They focus on the extreme end of drinking, the getting small, nash, binge drinking, harmful, alcohol use, misuse. These are the terms that we see throughout the teacher resources for this program. But young people are the most vulnerable to alcoholated harm, but from low levels of alcohol consumption, So you'll be.
Students engaged in this program.
I think it only matters if you're you know, you're blind, drunk on the floor, if you're getting into and fight. But no, those harms begin at much lower levels of alcohol consumption. And that's why our Ministry of Health guidelines is not to drink if you're fifteen years under.
Or delay as long as you can. When it comes to hazardous drinking. I know that the alcohol industry, whether it be spirits, beer, wine, et cetera. I mean, you don't sit around a table and think, right, this is going to cause drink driving deaths or hazardous drinking. I mean that's not something that the industry wants, right, And that's quite clear with all the absoluty work that the
industry does. How much money does the industry I mean you might not know this, but how much money does it put behind those educational programs and such.
That's done connectedly with spirits, wine and beer? And I actually don't know that the money. I know it's a significant amount of money.
Would the industry be open to maybe splashing out some cash on those initiatives like say the thing that you blow on when to get your car started and stuff.
Well, well, to give you an idea on that, the industry, or actually us as consumers, we all pay something called exercise texts that's increased more than twenty percent in the last four or so years and consumers paid one point two three billion to government in the twenty twenty four financial year, so the industry is also paying quite a lot.
But there is also from that there. At the moment, people can actually I guess, put a proposal forward to Health New Zealand to actually get more funding for the likes of the Smashed programs, which would be a really good thing.
And like you mentioned earlier as well, there are some positive signs that alcohol related deaths are decreasing. Right, What are some of those bright spots from the survey?
Oh well, I think I think the other area really well.
We've seen in the recent New Zeale and Road Safety Week showed the number of alcohol related road desks is reduced by forty percent than last year. That's a great thing. We know, as we mentioned before that the news number of New Zealand is convicted of driving under the influences declined by twenty seven.
Percent, so that's a good thing as well.
So I think all the indicators are there that we're in the right We've got the right trending going on. We're drinking in different ways, our number of hazardous drinkings are declining. But as I say, we've still got more work to do.
If you could get the air of the Justice Minister, Paul Goldsmith or somebody else in government, what's the one thing you'd like them to implement tomorrow to curb this hazard? Iss strong driving?
Definitely more targeted education in schools, both that plus also in workplaces as well. We would like to see, as I say, we cover at the moment about you know, a third of all high schools in New Zealand. We would like to see every high school receiving this program. As I say, independent research has showed it's very successful and we need to get to young people early. But equally as well, it's also quite important that we do more in workplaces as well, and there's actually a lot of free.
Programs at workplaces.
A lot of it's about education and understanding about drinking and how much.
Is too much?
You know, what is the standard drink? If we've got an issue, where can we go to get how all those practical things that are really really important. So I think it's important that we get the young people at sort of twelve and thirteen years, but we equally go into workplaces as well, and the online there's wonderful programs online.
Alcohol and Me is one of them where you can go on and do a whole lot of you can ask if you like, how much you know, any questions you want to do, and as I say, find out a lot more about what responsible drinking is all about.
Thanks for joining us, Virginia.
Okay, thanks Chelsea.
That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage at enzadherld dot co dot nz. The Front Page is produced by Ethan Sills and Richard Martin, who is also our sound engineer. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.