Mooney Joseph; Dean JacquiJOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland): I rise to speak on the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Community Participation) Amendment Bill. The National Party is not supporting this bill. We don't think it's a good response to what are some genuine issues. Communities in New Zealand obviously have the right and should have a say in how alcohol is sold in their communities and that's why we have these processes established in legislation to enable that to happen. But this bill has gone about it the wrong way to try to deal with what is a real issue—and there is a real issue in that it can take too long for the appeals process to wind their way through the system and for decisions to be held and the costs associated with that. But this bill has approached it in the wrong way and it's probably going to have some pretty unintended consequences which aren't good at all. It reminds me a little bit of that old saying that The path to hell is paved with good intentions". Sometimes you might be wanting to do the right thing but you end up achieving completely the opposite outcome which I think this bill will do and I will just touch on a couple of points about why that is. This will allow any person or group to object to a new or renewed licence application except for trade competitors where the objection relates to trade competition. So that means that an application in say Queenstown or in Gore could be objected to by people living in Auckland or Northland or an application in Tauranga could be objected to by someone living in Nelson and that really begs the question of how this is helping local communities have a say in where alcohol is sold in their communities. It's just got it frankly quite wrong. This also removes effectively appeal rights. The idea here is obviously to try and address the issue of these appeals taking too long and costing too much but completely removing any appeal right is frankly in my view bizarre. There should always be an option and an opportunity for affected persons to appeal against a decision made against them and to completely remove that I think misunderstands the way our justice system works and the way that we resolve disputes in our communities. Frankly it's just not good law and it's not good rule of law to remove those appeal rights so I find that quite extraordinary actually that that's the process to be taken in this bill. The other thing is that this bill allows parties or their representatives to question other parties or witnesses of other parties but it does not permit cross-examination. Now having spent many years working in courts all across New Zealand from the top to the bottom of the North Island and the South Island I can say that it's critical to allow cross-examination of witnesses because witnesses have a tendency consciously or unconsciously and parties have a tendency consciously or unconsciously to advance their own best interests and it's only through the process of cross-examination that it's actually possible to bring to the surface other facts and other issues that they don't necessarily want to or haven't thought of alerting the decision maker to.But it's actually really important for the decision maker or makers to understand so that they can make the right decision. So to completely remove the ability for a cross-examination takes away that key fundamental cornerstone of our justice system—and it's a system that we've established over many many hundreds of years—to bring to the surface the best facts available so that the decision maker or makers can make the best decision based on the information available to them. So that again just completely misunderstands things. This doesn't go as far as it but I just think of the best intentions in judicial processes that have been done in the past and this is obviously not the same but I'll just touch on the historical example of the Star Chamber which is probably well-known to those who have a legal interest. That court was originally established many hundreds of years ago in England to ensure the fair enforcement of laws against socially and politically prominent people whom ordinary courts would hesitate to convict. But the way it developed—despite that good intention—was that it became known and it is still known well to those who have a legal interest as a court that had strict arbitrary rulings as due process rights were ignored. It went as far as even having secretive proceedings and it became synonymous with social and political repression through the arbitrary use and abuse of the power that it wielded.This is not to that degree but this unfortunately does have some similarities in that it removes the appeal rights it removes the ability for cross-examination and ironically it enables anyone from anywhere in the country to make a submission on a local application or renewal of a whole licensing application. Like I said at the beginning there is certainly a case and an appropriate case to be made and communities should have a say on the way that alcohol is sold etc. in their community. But we need to be careful and I think of the history in my own region where between 1902 and 1957 the Gore District was under strict prohibition. No alcohol at all could be sold between 1902 and 1957 so it was a very very long period of time. What is also well-known in my region is that the Hokonui Hills behind Gore became alive with stills where illegal alcohol was brewed merrily and sold without any kind of oversight or control around the district. People were happily accessing alcohol between 1902 and 1957 but the Government had no oversight and no control. The community—Hon Judith Collins: It's like the King Country. JOSEPH MOONEY: My colleague the Hon Judith Collins says it's like in the King Country—the same thing. So the Government might come in and say "All right we're going to just stop things." but it has to be workable. It has to have an opportunity for people to be heard and to have their say and for the best facts to be provided to the decision maker and it needs to be so that local communities are making submissions for their community rather than people all around the country which simply doesn't make sense. Well I should just do a shout-out when I'm talking about Gore and Hokonui. The Hokonui Moonshine Museum in Gore is a fantastic place. It tells the history of prohibition and what led to it and what happened during those merry 50-plus years when the moonshine stills were up in the mountains of the Hokonui Hills where the water was being used to make liqueur and other alcohol around the region. In fact you can buy some responsibly brewed and sold whisky there which is actually extremely good. So look with that I'll say that the intention in this bill is certainly good but the execution is not. It is bad and it's not good due process. It won't lead to good decisions and fundamentally that's what this House should be focused on. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): Members the Government has indicated that it no longer wishes to continue with urgency. Accordingly the House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. today. Debate interrupted.The House adjourned at 12.47 p.m. (Thursday)"