Sounds very reasonable to me

Radio NZ has their latest campaign story where they think that government should refuse to talk to companies they regulate. Their latest starts off:

Alcohol lobbyists pushed health officials not to raise taxes, curb supply or cut industry sponsorship of sport – despite those measures being endorsed by the World Health Organisation as among the most effective ways to reduce alcohol harm.

This is the typical appeal to authority – because the WHO says something, it must be wrong to disagree.

This is the same WHO that said that all evidence is that Covid-19 had an animal origin.

I prefer to take issues on their merits, not on who advocates for them.

Health Coalition Aotearoa said the industry should have no role in shaping alcohol policy. But the ministry’s deputy director general Andrew Old defended its engagement, insisting companies had no special access.

“They certainly haven’t had any particular special treatment or back door into the ministry. It’s been a deliberate, structured approach. They’ve had quarterly meetings with the team,” Old said.

“I can absolutely and categorically say that there is no veto power. So if the industry says ‘we don’t want to see this’, that has no bearing on the outcome. It is a view that is considered alongside a range of other views.”

Old accepted the alcohol industry was motivated by profit.

“I also would hope that, in doing that, they don’t want to be doing harm,” he said. “There’s clearly a conflict. But, to my mind, it’s not an irreconcilable conflict that would mean that we should just never talk to them.”

Such common sense. HCA are unable to win policy arguments, so what they are now trying to do is say that arguments should be rejected on the basis of who says then, not the quality of the argument.

The MOH DDG is quote right. Of course government should be aware there is a profit motive to arguments from industry. That forms parts of your analysis and decision making. But that is very different to the Stalinist insistence that they must be silenced and not allowed to even meet or e-mail officials.

“The WHO SAFER strategies include measures like restricting availability and raising excise taxes,” a submission from the Brewers Association says.

“These broad based initiatives are generally seen as reducing consumption overall and not targeting harmful consumption.”

This is the terrible stuff the industry says. That interventions should aim to reduce harmful consumption, rather than all consumption. As it happens te data shows that overall consumption has reduced dramatically in the last 30 years, so it seems common sense to say you should target harmful consumption as a priority.

Spirits New Zealand, which represents the likes of Asahi, Bacardi, Diageo, Lion, Moet-Hennessy and Pernod Ricard, warned against launching action on FASD without knowing what the prevalence was.

It took issue with estimates, based on international studies and expert opinion, that 3-5 percent of babies – 1800 to 3000 every year – are born with FASD.

“This is simply not credible and is similar to the situation that existed when the last plan was developed in 2016,” the lobbyists say.

“We cannot see how any FASD-prevention plan can be started without good data as a baseline. We would ask that the Public Health Agency give assurances that work on measurement frameworks occurs prior to other plan elements being launched.”

Oh how terrible – they asked the government to actually gather good data, to be used as a basis for a prevention plan. Why would anyone be against good data?

Leigh Henderson, chair of the advocacy group FASD-CAN, was concerned the alcohol industry doubted the prevalence of FASD.

“Are they saying, ‘Okay, it’s all right for 500 babies to be born, but not 1800,” she asked. “We know it’s not 100 percent preventable, but to try and downplay it in that way is just callous and not recognising the level of the problem.”

This is just hysteria. No-one is saying 500 is good. They are saying that we should know what the prevalence is. This is critical to working out the appropriate interventions because a cost benefit analysis needs to be able to measure both.

In a statement chief executive Robert Brewer said Spirits NZ “categorically denies” downplaying the extent of FASD.

“The government can’t fix a problem if it doesn’t know its true extent, level of occurrence, who is affected and why and to do this you need good data. This is basic public policy.”

Eminently sensible, yet Radio NZ would have you think this is evil, and an example of why government officials should refuse to meet or respond to e-mails from industry.

The spirits industry also took issue with the draft FASD strategy saying New Zealand is a country where “alcohol is highly accessible, use is normalised,” and there are high rates of hazardous drinking.

Brewer said hazardous drinking had declined over the last four years in New Zealand to just 16 percent of adults.

Damn those evil industry people for trying to debate feelings with facts.