Charles Chauvel clarified things a bit on Labour’s SOP on the Alcohol reform Bill but confirmed the open ended ability of ‘the Minister’ to set an unrestricted mimimum price.

A minimum pricing regime could simply target that product, say by providing for a ceiling or cap of say $12 per bottle of wine so that other beverages were not affected. That would still double the price of the cheapest existing wine which can be bought at the moment for $6. Or it could be more complex.

So ‘it could be double’.

Obviously it would need not to create unintended incentives to purchase other products in lieu of cheap wine on which to preload, or to penalize responsible drinkers.

I don’t know how doubling the price of bottles of cheaper wine would not create all sorts of ‘unintended’ incentives and disincentives.

And any increase would penalise responsible drinkers. This sounds like trying to reassure responsible drinkers to their faces – while whacking them in the back pocket.

All this SOP would do is allow price to go into the mix.

With wide ministerial powers, no limitations, and unknown intentions.

Alcohol abuse is a complex and difficult problem to address, but much more effort needs to aim at the problems rather than catching everyone in the crossfire.

Ref: http://yournz.org/2012/07/05/charles-chauvel-alcohol-reform-bil/