Dr. Ciara Reynolds:

Senator Ruane voiced similar concerns about the body of evidence regarding the extension of opening hours and the impact that has on alcohol-related harms. We did a rapid review of systematic reviews and we found four which looked at changes in alcohol licensing hours. Systematic reviews are the highest level of evidence. They look at risk of bias and quality of evidence. The most recent systematic review was published in 2020 and it included 22 individual studies. The studies were from all over the world, Canada, Australia, Germany, which was mentioned earlier, the UK and the US. Within these studies it was found that extending opening hours by even one hour increased injuries, assaults, drink driving, car crashes and traffic injuries. Two of the systematic reviews also looked at what the result of restricting alcohol licensing hours would have. Restricting by just one hour could also reduce assaults and violence, emergency department injury presentations and hospitalisations for injury and intoxication.

The systematic reviews also looked at unintended consequences. None of the systematic reviews showed any unintended consequences of people proceeding to unlicensed premises to drink more. The increase in alcohol-related harms was found to directly correlate with the extension of licensing hours.