Bridges Simon: Alcohol Reform Bill — First Reading 
Bridges Simon: Alcohol Reform Bill — First Reading 
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SIMON BRIDGES (National—Tauranga) 
: 
 In the recent past there has been the discovery of Stone Age beer jugs from about 10000 BC or thereabouts and the evidence essentially indicates to archaeologists that beer probably preceded bread as a staple consumed by humans. I suppose it goes to show that man cannot live on bread alone but the point I make is that as long as there are people there will be alcohol. I agree with Doug Sellman that alcohol may well be a drug. I agree with him but I say that it will always be with us. 
I am not being fatalistic about this; I accept absolutely that something should be done. I accept there is a range of drinking habits. My father in my entire 34 years on this earth has never ever touched a drop of alcohol. I have offered him a beer a number of times. I have offered him wine. I have probably offered him stronger things but he has never to my knowledge in the last 34 years touched a drop of alcohol. I am not saying that everyone needs to be like that but that that is one valid response to alcohol. Then there are moderate drinkers and of course there are heavy drinkers or as some would say problem drinkers in our society and that is where this bill comes in. 
In recent history we have liberalised our drinking laws. We know that Lianne Dalziel and other members voted for that legislation—and I am not blaming them—and as a country we liberalised the alcohol laws substantially in 1989. I think we all—or certainly most of us other than three ACT members—agree that we went too far and that those changes in the law have led certainly in part to perhaps a culture change and to harmful drinking as a society. In this bill we swing the pendulum back somewhat and we focus on harm. In terms of policy we do not lurch as I think Lianne Dalziel Jim Anderton and members on the left would have us do. There is no point in policy lurches to one extreme and then 20-something years later—or 30 years later I should say—back to another extreme. 
A key word in all this as Simon Power has said is “balance” or being realistic about what can be achieved through the law. 
Sue Moroney 
: Simon if you want to call the Law Commission a “lurch” that’s up to you. 
SIMON BRIDGES 
: Frankly I do not want to see a set of laws that penalise moderate drinkers—but maybe the member opposite does—the sort of people Iain Lees-Galloway talked about who go to the supermarket and buy some bottles of wine to enjoy at their barbecue with friends. I do not want to see a law like that. 
Sue Moroney 
: How would the Law Commission’s recommendations jeopardise that? 
SIMON BRIDGES 
: The member opposite Sue Moroney may want to see that happen but I do not. 
I also acknowledge the comments of those ACT members who will vote against the bill because I agree with them to some extent. We also have to acknowledge that we live in a free society where freedom should be valued where people are hopefully mainly responsible—hopefully mainly have an eye to the serious harm that this drug alcohol can cause—but nevertheless where they are free to drink are free to have beer wine— 
Sue Moroney 
: Free to beat up the wife. 
SIMON BRIDGES 
: —and even cocktails in bars. Sue Moroney says: “Free to beat up the wife.” That is a disgraceful thing to say because I do not think that any responsible member in this House wants to see that. By arguing for a freer society I do not think anyone in this House is arguing for that sort of thing. We are merely saying that the pendulum in 1989 actually swung far too far in favour of liberal laws and free access—any time anywhere—and a number of other things. 
We want to put the balance back in but in doing that we need to be balanced. We need to make sure that people are not penalised if they are moderate drinkers and that we appreciate and accept that people are free in our country to drink—we are not going to prohibition—and to do so we hope responsibly. 
As someone who is on the Justice and Electoral Committee which will be considering the bill I say in closing that it is an important point that the bill is a starting point; it is not the end point. We will certainly be listening very carefully I am sure to the hundreds of submissions we will get. We want to have sensible submissions and we will want to change the law when good points are made. All select committee processes should be taken seriously but the process on this one perhaps should be even more so. We really will be listening and this bill is seen very much as a starting point. 
Finally I will not go through the specific provisions but one provision—and probably not the most important—concerns what we are doing in relation to ready-to-drink alcohol. We are limiting the amount of alcohol in such drinks and limiting the size of the bottles. I acknowledge John Church a constituent who came and saw me about this some months ago. He came in with a large raspberry-flavoured pre-mixed drink; I think it was called Big Foot. He talked to me very graphically and emotionally about the effect that it was having in his community. He saw young people buying that drink which looked like Fanta. The young people were certainly of an age when Fanta was all they should have been drinking yet they were out on the streets drinking the other. That is just one vivid example of where we are seeking and where we will be effecting change in this law for the better so that the pendulum can come some way back but so that we can still live in a free society where we are not penalising moderate drinkers.