Sio William: Sale and Supply of Alcohol Bill Local Government (Alcohol Reform) Amendment Bill Summary Offences (Alcohol Reform) Amendment Bill — Third Readings 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Sio William: Sale and Supply of Alcohol Bill Local Government (Alcohol Reform) Amendment Bill Summary Offences (Alcohol Reform) Amendment Bill — Third Readings 
[Sitting date: 11 December 2012. Volume:686;Page:7364. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Su’a WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Mangere) 
: 
 I have no joy in speaking on this legislation. I think of a young woman who at the beginning of this year after a party in the early hours of the morning slipped and fell on to the motorway in Mangere and got rammed by a truck. Now I think of how many people will die—alcohol related—during the holiday period. There is no joy in this given that many people drink and alcohol has become a normal natural part of our enjoyment of social engagements. It is of no joy for me to vote against the legislation given the liquor industry provides jobs for our workforce. Jobs are what our communities desperately seek especially at this time with close to 300000 New Zealanders who are jobless and a 13-year high unemployment rate of 7.3 percent. 
I do want to acknowledge though my colleague Lianne Dalziel who has persistently argued and advocated on the issues advanced by the community on this matter. I also want to acknowledge my Labour colleagues and other parties who have developed Supplementary Order Papers to promote significant change and to improve this legislation. 
I think all of us have attempted to highlight to this Government the state of the national crisis on our hands. Despite what the liquor industry and this Government say the community knows the true state of this national alcohol crisis. Twenty-five percent of New Zealand drinkers are heavy drinkers a third of all police apprehensions involve alcohol half of serious violent crimes relate to alcohol 60 different medical conditions are caused by heavy drinking up to 75 percent of adult presentations at emergency departments on Thursday Friday and Saturday nights are alcohol related there are over 300 alcohol-related offences every day and over 500 serious and fatal injury traffic crashes every year at least 600 children are born each year with foetal alcohol spectrum disorder there are over 1000 alcohol deaths every year and more than 17000 years of life per year are lost through alcohol. 
More than two-thirds of alcohol in New Zealand is being consumed at harmful or hazardous levels by about 700000 heavy drinkers—the total population of Wellington and Christchurch combined. There are more than 70000 alcohol-related physical and sexual assaults each year in our homes and a third of police apprehensions involve alcohol. 
Like tobacco alcohol is a killer. Twenty people are dying every week from alcohol-related problems—half from injuries and other acute deaths related to intoxication and the other half from various chronic diseases. This includes our three most common cancers: breast cancer prostate cancer and bowel cancer. Second-hand alcohol causes brain damage in up to 3000 unborn babies every year. This together with alcohol-related violence poverty and neglect suffered by children constitutes a serious breach of the human rights of New Zealand’s most vulnerable citizens. 
The alcohol industry will argue that it wants responsible drinkers but the industry and the supermarkets and dairies actively target our young people. Every advertisement seen by a young person aged 15 to 24 years increases by 1 percent the number of drinks they consume. The alcohol industry wants customers for life similar to the tobacco industry. The community responded with marches petitions newspaper articles letters to the editor and documentaries all pointing to the harm caused by alcohol—[ 
Bell rung 
]—that was fast—in our communities. We have a national alcohol crisis. 
Let me just say that the liquor industry argued personal responsibility but it will not tell New Zealanders that alcohol is highly intoxicating alcohol is a neurotoxin that can cause brain damage alcohol can directly cause aggression and a lot of the alcohol industry’s profit comes from heavy drinking. 
Let me just conclude. Our children who are the most vulnerable are targeted by this industry and under this legislation they will continue to be the targets. When I weigh up the benefits promoted by the liquor industry and the improvements that the Government says it has made in this legislation against the harm and the cost of alcohol-related harm in our communities the harm and the cost of harm far outweigh any benefit to society. I will be voting against this legislation.