The Sports Minister says he has no interest in backing a Bill that'd see the end of all alcohol advertising and sponsoring of broadcast sporting events.
But Newshub can reveal part of his official advice on the Bill was factually incorrect.
Breaking up the relationship between booze and ball is a mission Green Party MP Chlöe Swarbrick is on.
"This is an opportunity to put people above profit," she said.
Her Member's Bill would ban all alcohol advertising and sponsorship when it comes to sport.
It would end things like an ad for a Kiwi brewery plastered around the edges of the Ranfurly Shield final and potentially prevent partnerships like the newly minted one between New Zealand Cricket and RTD Pals, announced just on Thursday.
"Exposure to alcohol marketing, including alcohol sponsorship, is linked with increased consumption and also more hazardous consumption in later life", said Tim Chambers from the University of Otago Department of Public Health.
But the Sports Minister isn't keen on it.
"It would be a quick and knee-jerk way of dealing with what is a complex issue," said Grant Robertson.
There's concern it'd cut off significant community sports funding. The latest estimates on how much booze sponsorship brings in was $20 million, back in 2015.
"If people want to argue this is a fundamental, valuable source of income for the sports sector, then they need to show us the money," said Swarbrick.
"If you go and ask individual sports clubs across New Zealand you'll find that for many of them it's very significant," said Robertson.
In the past, Roberston has voted in favour of various alcohol advertising ban Bills and some of the advice given to the minister from Sport New Zealand on this one wasn't entirely accurate.
Dated July 2022 and obtained by Newshub, one letter reveals the organisation referred to an imminent sports sponsorship audit by the Health Sponsorship Council.
But that council was dissolved in 2012.
"It's a bit embarrassing, to be honest," said Swarbrick.
Robertson said, "someone just made a mistake there".
"They meant the Health Promotion Agency."
Sports New Zealand has further clarified to Newshub it was actually the Alcohol Healthwatch conducting the audit, not the Health Promotion Agency, or the Health Sponsorship Council.
The Bill will be Parliament's first conscience vote this year, meaning MPs can vote how they want.
National and ACT are both block voting against it so that leaves the fate of it in the hands of Labour, and with the Government currently working on its own alcohol policies, this Bill could be dead in the keg.
