(Cancer Council W.A Report November 2022) Download Report Here

Cancer Council WA have identified the following priorities for urgent liquor reform:

• Require that alcohol deliveries are not left unattended at the delivery address, and proof of age is checked in all cases to minimise risk of children and young people accessing alcohol bought online. Nine retailers in our audit already state this policy in their delivery terms, requiring that all alcohol deliveries are handed over to an appropriate person and not left unattended at any time.
  
• Restrict all alcohol delivery hours to between 10am and 10pm to minimise risks from alcohol use in the home late at night, such as the risks of family violence and suicide, which peak late at night. Only two retailers in our audit offered delivery after 10pm meaning that regulating now will have minimal impost on businesses while helping to ensure future market expansions don’t increase the risk associated with alcohol delivery late at night.
  
• Introduce a mandatory delay of two hours between alcohol order and delivery to prevent impulsive alcohol purchases and reduce the risk of rapid delivery enabling people to drink to high-risk levels. Nine retailers in our audit, mostly larger chain stores offered rapid delivery in under 2 hours to Perth. Many of these offered cheap alcohol products and negligible delivery costs.
  
• Require online alcohol retailers to verify that people buying alcohol are 18 years or older using an independent age verification mechanism. None of the retailers in our audit required digital age verification, however this measure has already been introduced in NSW regulations, making it likely that national businesses operating in WA will have taken steps to adopt the required technology.
  
• Require alcohol delivery businesses to report data to the liquor regulator on the number, time of day, and locations (by postcode) of alcohol deliveries, and the volume and retail sale price of alcohol delivered. Access to such data would support researchers to generate independent, robust evidence to inform further reviews of the regulations as the online marketplace evolves.
  

(Dalgarno Institute comment: As part of the Community of Practice looking into these practices, we totally concur with the recommendations. We have also submitted that regardless of how often a delivery is made to an address, I.D. of receiving person should not only be seen but recorded on each delivery and stored in central and reportable data bases.)