Integrity Briefing: How the alcohol industry continues to get a seat at the policymaking table
Below is a guest “Integrity Briefing” from Dr Melissa-Jade Gregan, a senior researcher at The Integrity Institute. Melissa-Jade is researching politically influential companies and organisations on our “NZ Lobbying & Influence Register”. She has a PhD in public health and political influence from the University of Auckland.
Her column below is a response to yesterday's investigative article by RNZ's Guyon Espiner about how Ministry of Health officials are working too closely with lobbyists from the alcohol industry. Melissa-Jade draws on her PhD research to reinforce Espiner's points about the power of alcohol lobbying.
Note to media, journalists and editors: Melissa-Jade's opinion piece is available for publication. Don't hesitate to get in touch with us if you'd like to use it in any form.
Dr Bryce Edwards
Director of The Integrity Institute
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Integrity Briefing: How the alcohol industry continues to get a seat at the policymaking table
By Dr Melissa-Jade Gregan
If you want to know why New Zealand's alcohol policies so often favour industry over community health, look no further than the latest revelations of “way too friendly” dealings between health officials and alcohol lobbyists. Guyon Espiner revelations were published yesterday by RNZ – see: New' rules of engagement' with alcohol lobby after alarm at 'way too friendly' interactions. It seems that despite the well-documented harms of alcohol, industry representatives still enjoy privileged, behind-the-scenes access to the very people tasked with regulating them — something community groups and public health advocates can only dream of.
The Alcohol lobby's privileged access
Espiner's latest investigation reveals what insiders have known for years: the alcohol industry is not just consulted on health policy — it's calling the shots. Emails released under the Official Information Act show that Ministry of Health officials are constantly communicating with alcohol lobbyists, sharing draft policy documents, and even inviting industry feedback on how public health money should be spent.
In one case, officials paused work on reviewing drinking guidelines and scrubbed references to international standards from a government website at the request of an alcohol lobbyist. Part of this was also revealed in an investigation by Espiner, published by RNZ in May: Alcohol lobbyists given input on health policies, documents reveal.
The industry was also given the draft plan for managing Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) and asked for feedback on the $16 million Alcohol Levy, money intended to reduce alcohol harm.
This isn't a one-off. The documents reveal a pattern of “regular meetings and exchanges of information” between officials and lobbyists, with the industry positioning itself, and being treated as a partner in reducing harm, even as it fights against community-led alcohol policies.
The Strange case of Ross Bell
Ross Bell, a group manager in the Ministry of Health's Public Health Agency, is at the centre of this. Bell has shifted roles – he was previously a long-serving head of the New Zealand Drug Foundation. In becoming a public servant, Bell has moved from being a staunch public health advocate to becoming an industry liaison, now in one of the most senior public health roles responsible for alcohol policy in New Zealand.
While at the Drug Foundation, Bell argued that the liberalisation of alcohol regulations had “revolutionised the alcohol industry” and was behind New Zealand's “drinking problem” as well as “domestic violence, drink-drive deaths and youth suicide”. See his proclamations such as: Let's face up to our drinking problem and Public encouraged to speak up on alcohol law reform.
Bell also encouraged the public to make submissions on the Alcohol Reform Bill, saying: “No doubt the Government is under a lot of pressure from industry lobbyists to leave things as they are” and he argued that changing New Zealand's approach to alcohol was more important than the “industry's profit margins”.
Now, in his position as liaison with the alcohol lobby, Bell's messaging appears to have fundamentally changed. The latest revelations paint a picture of Bell becoming captured by the alcohol lobbyists that he's been liaising with.
Public health locked out of early policy debates
The latest revelations show the generous level of access that alcohol lobbyists have to policymakers. Contrast this with the experience of public health advocates, who are largely denied the same opportunities. As my own research has shown, government-funded public health service providers are restricted by their contracts from engaging in anything that looks like political advocacy.
Their input is confined to formal processes — select committee hearings, public consultations — by which time, as one Minister put it, “95 percent of [a bill] is already set in concrete”. Public health experts spend hours preparing evidence and submissions (the only form of 'political advocacy' their contracts allow) only to find the real decisions have already been made.
Relationship-building: The Industry's secret weapon
How does the alcohol industry maintain this privileged access? Through deliberate, long-term relationship-building. My research documents how lobbyists use gifts, sponsorships, exclusive events, and informal gatherings — often involving alcohol itself — to forge connections with decision-makers.
For instance, every Christmas, boxes of beer arrive at Parliament for MPs and their staff. Even the Parliamentary rugby team, made up of MPs, staff and journalists, gets sponsored by alcohol companies.
MPs and Ministers also hold parties, with alcohol provided free of charge via alcohol lobbyists. For example, every February, Shane Jones holds his annual Waitangi Party, inviting politicians, journalists, lobbyists, businesspeople, and other dignitaries. The wine, beer and spirits they drink are donated by lobbyists for Lion Nathan and NZ Wines and Spirits. This isn't disclosed by the lobbyists, because there are no such rules or official register for lobbyists, but Shane Jones has had to disclose this in the latest 2025 Parliamentary Register of Pecuniary Interests.
These are not just perks — they are investments in influence, creating a friendly, informal environment where lobbyists make their case subtly, away from public scrutiny. The effect is to normalise industry involvement in policy, making it seem natural — even inevitable — that big alcohol businesses should have a say in how it is regulated.
These industry relationships aren't just nice-to-have; they're seen as essential. As politicians in my research bluntly admitted, without relationships, “you get nowhere.” One Minister told me that “relationships are crucial” to politics, describing them as “the bridge over which you drive the traffic; the traffic is the issue, the bridge is the relationship.” These connections provide multiple entry points into the policy process, with officials and politicians far more likely to listen to — and act on behalf of — those they know personally and make introductions that amplify industry influence.
The Cost: Distorted policy and weak democracy
This imbalance of access is not just a technical issue — it has real consequences for our communities. When the alcohol industry is allowed to shape policy from the earliest stages, the result is weaker regulation, diluted community voices, and policies that protect profits over people.
We saw this in the decade-long battle over Auckland's Local Alcohol Policy, where supermarket and alcohol interests used legal appeals to delay and water down community-driven restrictions on alcohol sales. Many councils, lacking the resources to fight back (which cost Auckland ratepayers over $1m) simply dropped or gutted their policies to avoid costly legal battles.
Meanwhile, the harms of alcohol — mental health issues, injuries, violence, and chronic disease, many of which affect those around those drinking — continue to fall most heavily on those with the least power to influence policy. Noncommunicable diseases, driven by products like alcohol, account for over 80 percent of health loss in New Zealand. Yet our policies too often reflect the interests of those who profit from these harms, not those who bear the brunt of them.
So why do we still let the alcohol industry in the room? New Zealanders deserve health policies made in the public interest, not in cosy conversations with those who profit from harm.
We must adopt clear, enforceable rules of engagement for entities who benefit from harm. Are big alcohol companies seriously going to recommend their hard-earned money is spent on something that'll reduce their profits? In the area of tobacco control, public health advocates call it the “scream test” – the more effective a policy is, the louder the industry screams about how unfair it is.
The World Health Organisation Global Action Plan (2022-2030) includes an operational principle (35) that Member states ensure that alcohol policy measures are protected from the interference of commercial interests. With the latest evidence of inappropriate “way too friendly” relationships between senior officials and alcohol lobbyists in New Zealand, it's not hard to fathom that this is a significant reason that this country was recently ranked last for effective alcohol policy in the International Alcohol Control Policy Index – see the Public Health Communication Centre's International index ranks Aotearoa New Zealand last for effective alcohol policy.
If we are serious about reducing alcohol harm and protecting our democracy, it's time to take the alcohol industry's seat at the policy table away — once and for all.
Dr Melissa-Jade Gregan
Senior Researcher, The Integrity Institute
melissa-jade@theintegrityinstitute.org.nz
I think my greatest regret in reading this is that a civil servant has been named and criticised, when he has no ability to respond. The guest writer has in my view badly wronged him. But Ross Bell, on her description, is doing a very good policy job, by remaining really close to the alcohol industry and seeking to learn as much as possible about how they think, and whatever they offer in terms of studies they have made of their industry and abuse of alcohol. The real risk for the MoH, which employs public health doctors equally dedicated to reducing harms from alcohol as Ms Gregan, is that when it comes to the final policy proposal, their advice will get pre-empted. They must warn the Minister of all the industry might seek to affect at the last minute, by knowing it intimately. It is Ministers and MPs who take decisions on policy, not civil servants, but they should get good advice. In this case I am sure they are, and find Ms Gregan's assumption she knows better to be arrogant and offensive to hard-working health 'colleagues'.
Ms Gregan has used a WHO website page on non-communicable diseases to completely misrepresent the ills of alcohol. The WHO says that four NCDs account for 80% of NCD deaths - cardiovascular, COPDs, cancer and diabetes. The WHO says that alcohol (and tobacco and a few others) are 'risk factors' in NCDs. Ms Gregan says the 80% figure is for NZ, and that alcohol 'drives' the 80% statistic, which is clearly nonsense. One won't get far with distortions like this, with people who know that about 76% of NZ adults drink alcohol, and that the levels of harmful drinking, on MoH definition, are slowly decreasing, most quickly among the young. Alcohol is OK in moderation and drunk that way by over 3 million Kiwis, but there are 720k argued to be drinking at harmful levels at times. These are the target for policy, and leaving the industry out of it, when it (see its website) agrees they exist and spends money trying to identify and minimise this problem, would be silly.
The success of alcohol lobbying is probably no greater than say sports lobbying (it would be useful to have had some comparisons with other such lobby groups for stuff that people want). That doesn't mean that it is right to provide any group (industrial, ethnic, community, whatever) with more than its fair democratic share of access to decision makers, as available to any group or individual . Except when government is in direct negotiation over specific changes. Free alcohol coming from the industry should most certainly be a no no. Whilst not supporting official lobbyists, or a lobbyists register, I do think to be able to monitor unfair lobbying, all members of parliament and government officials should be required to keep and make available on demand, records of whom they have been communicating with outside of ongoing contracts, provision of services and similar arrangements. I don't know if the time is right to change the public image of alcohol as a "fun product" but it certainly is responsible for a lot of damage and cost.