Green MP Chlöe Swarbrick wants to work with National leader Christopher Luxon to help him and his caucus understand the potential impacts of banning alcohol sponsorship and advertising at sports venues and on broadcast live sport.
Speaking on AM on Wednesday, Luxon said he wasn't across the details of a Bill proposed by Swarbrick that would ban "alcohol sponsorship and advertising of all streamed and live sports and [ban] alcohol sponsorship at all sporting venues".
However, he wants to consider the proposals with his caucus and is interested in understanding the impacts of removing alcohol sponsorship from sporting teams or venues on their bottom lines.
"What happens to all those grassroots sporting organisations that are able to do good stuff in their community and provide a social good because of the support that they get," Luxon said.
He said the alternative may be the taxpayer having to step in to fund the groups.
Swabrick said she's offered National a briefing on this.
"I have been trying to contact [Luxon] about this issue since November last year," Swarbrick told AM. "I've written to his office twice and several of his members, so I'm stoked that they're going to be considering it finally in their caucus."
She noted that the 2014 Ministerial Forum on Alcohol Advertising and Sponsorship recommended introducing a "sponsorship replacement programme" to assist clubs, teams and events if they cannot find alternative funding.
"What we know, looking at research here when tobacco sponsorship was ended, is that that void is filled pretty quickly. When you look overseas again, you also see, I believe in Australia after tobacco sponsorship was ended, within the space of a few weeks and months, they saw that 84 percent of that was replaced almost immediately.
While her Bill only looks at prohibiting alcohol sponsorship/advertising on broadcast sport, she believes outright banning it is "absolutely a trajectory that we should be on".
Swabrick's Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Harm Minimisation) Amendment Bill needs to gain the support of 61 non-executive MPs or be drawn from the Member's Bill ballot to be introduced into Parliament.
The conversation has been sparked by the release of Patrick Gower's On Booze documentary on Tuesday night which explored the Newshub journalist's own relationship with alcohol.
Swarbrick described it as "really confronting".
"I think perhaps the major takeaway for me was that point that he made around how the environment that all of us live in and I think he called it the runaway train that all of us feel as though we're on in this country growing up and being surrounded and saturated by alcohol induces this kind of behaviour in the first place."
