Duncan Garner: The alcohol do-gooders have gone too far this time - it's woke culture gone mad

OPINION: This time I think the alcohol do-gooders have gone too far. 

Their ultimate aim is to ban all alcohol sponsorship of sports teams, but the trigger for this has left me gobsmacked. 

A month ago, the Highlanders rugby team turned up at Green Island Primary School to serve the kids breakfast alongside another local sponsor, Harraways rolled oats. They served up porridge.

Some would say that's the best sort of breakfast you can give anyone - go easy on the brown sugar maybe.

Porridge, tick, served up by high profile rugby players, tick, modelling good behaviour, tick. 

But the anti-booze lobby has thrown its arms in the air and formally complained because the players wore their Highlanders jerseys and the jerseys have local beer brand Speights right across the front. 

The advertising rules require the name and logo to be brief and subordinate, and this is in your face they say.

Oh come on, I bet if you asked the kids afterwards what was on the jersey they'd say they didn't know? They'd be oblivious in the whole. 

Principal Steve Hayward wisely points out they weren't serving up Speights. It was porridge 

He says this is woke culture gone mad. I know that's a bit of cliche these days but I'm inclined to agree on this one.

The campaigners say banning alcohol from sports sponsorship is the natural extension of banning tobacco sponsorship in the late '80s, early '90s. I completely disagree. 

Yes, we are going for a smoke-free New Zealand. There's no such thing as smoking in moderation. Banning it was right. 

But we aren't going for an alcohol-free world. These companies are part of our communities and there's no indication that they're about to become illegal.

They sell the products. It's our job as parents to show our kids how to drink responsibly.

Duncan Garner hosts The AM Show.