Justice Minister Judith Collins has ruled out supporting a change to the Alcohol Reform Bill to allow councils to exercise their new powers a lot faster.
The Labour Party wants an amendment to reduce the timeframe before councils can put new alcohol policies in place from 16 to seven months.
But Ms Collins says that is too short a time for some councils to get those policies right.
She says Labour is delaying the progress of the bill by introducing changes.
The bill is back before the House on Tuesday afternoon for its committee stages.
