The NSW Government is in its second stage of reviewing the alcohol delivery reforms which started in July 2021. The reforms aimed to better regulate online sales and delivery of alcohol. The Stage 1 Review of Alcohol Delivery Reforms reported significant compliance failures:
- one in ten drivers were unaware of the age and ID check requirements
- seven of the 25 covert compliance operations failed to verify Point of Delivery ID
- ten per cent of delivery drivers felt unprotected from being penalised
- nearly one in ten who refused a delivery had been penalised by their employer
- a complaint was received about a non-same day delivery of alcohol to a person under 18.
FARE responded to the ‘Alcohol Delivery Reforms review – Stage 2 discussion paper’.
FARE recommendations:
Implementation of alcohol reporting requirements
- Continue the current alcohol data collection requirements and explore opportunities to communicate and translate this data for policy development.
Validity of policy objectives & appropriateness of reforms
- Limit alcohol deliveries to between 10am and 10pm to reduce the risks of alcohol-related family violence and suicide, which increase later at night in the home.
- Retain the current online ID check requirements, extend this to non-same day delivery and expediate the introduction without further delay to ensure that alcohol is not sold to children.
- Retain delivery ID check requirements and extend them to non-same day delivery of alcohol to ensure that alcohol is not supplied to children.
- Require all people who deliver alcohol to have Responsible Service of Alcohol Training, including people who make non-same day deliveries.
Additional harm minimisation strategies for other liquor deliveries that are not same day
- Apply harm minimisation measures to all deliveries of alcohol, including non-same day delivery.
Direct and social media marketing and consumer data used for deliveries that are not same day
- Require the removal of direct links from advertisements to alcohol retail. These include ‘buy now’ buttons imbedded in social media platforms and push notifications sent to people’s phones prompting them to buy alcohol.
Other feedback
- Rapid delivery. Introduce a 2-hour safety pause between the order and delivery of alcohol-only orders.
- Health warnings. Require NSW alcohol retailers to display on their websites that target NSW localities, at least three prescribed rotating health warning statements about the risk of alcohol use, and a prescribed pregnancy warning, with a link to the Australian guidelines.
- Test purchasing. Retain test purchasing compliance checks and extend them to non-same day delivery.
- Specific liquor licence. Establish online sale and delivery as a class of liquor license, to ensure that companies selling and delivering alcohol into homes can be adequately regulated and the community adequately consulted on licence applications.
- Risk-based licensing. Develop specific risk ratings for online sale and delivery, for the purposes of calculating risk-based liquor licensing fees for online alcohol delivery, to accurately reflect the increased risk of harms.
