Investigative reporter Guyon Espiner has been looking at how Government agencies and state-owned enterprises are spending hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars on lobbying firms.
That connection between big business, the media and politicians and the role it plays in shaping the way we drink in Aotearoa is also in part the subject of Espiner's new book 'The Drinking Game'.
Espiner spoke with Tova O'Brien about the book and how he was his own case study when it came to New Zealand's encouraged drinking culture.
"I don't think it's coincidental that we seem to think relationships and success and sport and all the occasions we can mention in life - that alcohol is going to be our friend and partner," Espiner said.
"You are made to feel like quite an outsider if you don't drink in New Zealand… There is a narrative sold to us and that's part of the reason why it's embedded so deeply into the culture.
"I wanted to figure out how it is we got to where we are."
Espiner said he looked at what role advertising, lobbying and regulation play in New Zealand's drinking culture, telling O'Brien the media should put their "hands up" and be more transparent with Kiwis.
"I do think there's a bit of a cone of silence thing that goes on here and the public's got no idea about how this stuff works," he said.
"You talk to people about lobbying, they immediately go to America - they think it's something that happens in Washington and not in Wellington.
"Weirdly, America's lobbying rules are really, really strong in terms of transparency and rigour. You can go to jail for a few years, you can get fined big time. In New Zealand, they don't even define what lobbying is. There's no public lobbying register.
"Lobbyists who have massive control over shaping public policy don't have to register. They don't have to declare their clients.
"Who knew that Andrew Kirton had lobbied for alcohol companies? I didn't know that. Should we know that? I think we should."
"There are a lot of issues that big alcohol [companies] want either rolled back or rolled forward… they've got skin in the game."
To hear more about the book and New Zealand's lobbying culture, Listen to Espiner and Tova's full interview above.
You can also download the full interview on the Tova podcast, and listen on the go.
