2026-08-24
The Victorian Greens have introduced legislation to Parliament to rein in online alcohol delivery and advertising, after the Labor Government failed to act on repeated warnings about the role easy alcohol access plays in family violence and other serious harm.
The Liquor Control Reform and Other Acts Amendment (Reducing Alcohol-Related Harms) Bill 2026, introduced by Victorian Greens health spokesperson Dr Sarah Mansfield, would introduce a two-hour delay on alcohol deliveries, prohibit deliveries between 10pm and 10am, and significantly restrict alcohol advertising on public transport and roads.
The Bill comes two years after National Cabinet agreed states and territories should strengthen liquor laws following the Rapid Review of Prevention Approaches to End Gender-Based Violence, including by addressing online alcohol sales, delivery timeframes and advertising.
Despite those recommendations, the Victorian Labor Government has failed to introduce reforms, as online alcohol sales have almost quadrupled over the past decade, with alcohol now able to be ordered through a smartphone and delivered within minutes.
The Greens say Victoria’s outdated liquor laws have failed to keep pace, allowing alcohol corporations and delivery platforms to aggressively market alcohol and make it available around the clock with far fewer safeguards than exist in physical bottle shops and venues.
The reforms follow the 2023 death of 30-year-old Heidelberg woman Kathleen Arnold from alcohol poisoning. A coronial investigation found she had purchased 319 alcohol products through delivery services in the six months before her death and recommended both a delivery curfew and two-hour delay between ordering and delivery.
Recent Australian research has also found around half of Australians have experienced harm because of another person’s drinking, while alcohol was involved in 47 per cent of police-reported family and domestic violence incidents.
Quotes attributable to Victorian Greens health spokesperson Dr Sarah Mansfield:
“Every smartphone has effectively become a bottle shop, but our liquor laws are still stuck in an era when alcohol was overwhelmingly bought across a counter.
“Alcohol companies and delivery platforms have exploited that gap, making it possible to aggressively target people online and have alcohol delivered to their door within minutes, at almost any hour.
“Families, frontline services, health experts and advocates have asked Labor to act. They’ve written letters, held meetings and raised these issues again and again. Labor has done nothing, so the Greens have written the laws ourselves.”