News

New research demonstrating the effects of minimum alcohol pricing and debunking the industry argument that it penalises all drinkers received significant media attention, particularly in the first Australian jurisdiction to introduce a ‘floor price’.

Minimum alcohol pricing was introduced in the Northern Territory in October 2018, mandating a minimum $1.30 unit price per standard drink. The industry argued that the policy would financially disadvantage all drinkers, not just the heavy drinkers it was designed for.

To test this argument, researchers analysed the drinking habits of 766 survey respondents not directly targeted by the policy and calculated their expenditure based on the cost of their beverage of choice before and after the introduction of the policy.

“We found that the average alcohol expenditure for moderate drinkers only went up by a very modest $3.07 per year – a less than one percent increase,” said NDRI Research Fellow Dr Nic Taylor, who led the analysis published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health.

“In fact, we found evidence to suggest that the impact of the minimum unit price for some moderate drinkers was so small that everyday alcohol discounts had a greater impact on how much they were paying for alcohol than the introduction of the policy itself.

“What this all demonstrates is that universal policies, like the floor price, can be an effective measure for reducing harm among high-risk groups without disrupting the lives of others.”

Read the media release or an Opinion piece exploring minimum unit pricing research