Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Display of Low-alcohol Beverages and Other Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSale and Supply of Alcohol (Display of Low-alcohol Beverages and Other Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 15 March 2016. Volume:712;Page:9720. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Display of Low-alcohol Beverages and Other Remedial Matters) Amendment BillFirst ReadingHon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for the Environment) on behalf of theMinister of Justice: I move That the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Display of Low-alcohol Beverages and Other Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I will be nominating the Justice and Electoral Committee to consider the bill.The passing of the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act in December 2012 marked the first time in more than two decades that the Government moved to restrict rather than relax New Zealand’s alcohol laws. The Act introduced a range of measures to combat alcohol-related harm crime and public health problems. It also empowered our communities across New Zealand giving them a chance to have a say in how alcohol in their area is sold and supplied. Two years on is still early days to draw overall conclusions on such a major regulatory reform. However the early signs are encouraging: we are already seeing far fewer alcohol outlets the first local alcohol plans are coming into force and more communities are getting the chance to have a say on the way in which alcohol is sold in their community.This relatively short bill is not an overhaul of New Zealand’s alcohol laws because they need time to settle. Rather this bill addresses a couple of unintended effects that have arisen since the passage of the Act—a couple of tweaks in the law that are needed. Such changes are unfortunately always possible when such large reforms are done and this is not atypical.The first change addresses how non-alcoholic and low-alcohol beer and wine are displayed in supermarkets and grocery stores. Under the Act supermarkets are required to place all alcohol and promotions of alcohol in a single area of their store and no other products may be placed there. This was quite properly put into the alcohol reform law so that it would limit how much shoppers are exposed to alcohol and—for those people familiar with alcoholism—to recognise how difficult it is for people going to get their essentials to not be inadvertently tempted to attempt to buy alcohol. It is part of the broader effect of trying to improve New Zealand’s drinking culture.However because of the way in which alcohol has been defined in the law stores cannot now legally place beer and wine with very low-alcohol content in that single area. This sometimes leads to supermarkets having to place very low or no-alcohol beer or wine with the fruit drinks and soft drinks or opting not to sell them at all and that is not to the community’s advantage. Although these products have existed for some time there has been a significant increase in their popularity. I for one—particularly with the change in the drink-driving limits—confess to often wanting to choose to drink low-alcohol beers of which there are some excellent products. They are positive moderation products which allow people to enjoy the social aspects of drinking while limiting their intake of alcohol. I have no doubt that it was ever the intention of this House to place a legislative block in the way of these sorts of low-alcohol products being sold alongside full-strength alcohol.The amendment in this bill addresses this by permitting supermarkets to place these products in the alcohol area. It will allow supermarkets to place these alternatives alongside the full-strength alcohol where shoppers would expect them to be and in my view where they will actually have the positive effect of people making that choice more often. It will remove the need for the products branded like alcohol to be sold with fizzy drinks and fruit juice—which I actually think is also counter-productive to what the intent of the House was in requiring supermarkets to have a clear separation of those sorts of products. So the provision in this bill is a common-sense solution that provides clarity for the stores for responsible drinkers and for the general public.The second change that is proposed in this bill addresses the definition of a “company”. Under the previous Sale of Liquor Act companies were explicitly included under the category of those who could hold an alcohol licence. This was not carried over in the same way to the new Act. Although this oversight has not caused problems it is important to make clear in the law that companies can continue to hold licences as they always have done. I think most of us would acknowledge in our communities that most of our stores that hold licences—cafes liquor stores—are in the structure of a company and it is appropriate for them to be able to hold a liquor licence in the name of that company. The amendment simply adds “company” to the list of who can hold a licence and rectifies this problem.Although the changes in the bill are minor they are necessary and positive for the overall functioning and common-sense way that I think the House would expect the law to function. I commend the bill to the House.JACINDA ARDERN (Labour): I think it is a useful opportunity—now that we have as the Minister has described a relatively minor tweak to the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act—to have a slightly broader discussion about whether or not this bill could have been a vehicle for perhaps some other tweaks that even the Government itself flagged at the time that it introduced the primary legislation in 2012. I will come to that point later.But first to address the substance of what otherwise is a rather minor and technical bill—and for that reason one that Labour will lend its support to but as always we will be interested to hear from submitters via the select committee process as to what their views are on this amendment. Just to explore probably the most substantive of the amendments which is around section 114 of the Act which will allow for the display promotion or advertisement of low-alcohol or non-alcoholic beer wine—important—or the mead that apparently we still retail within an alcohol area part of our problem is that within the legislation as it stands “alcohol” is clearly defined. “Alcohol” is defined as a product that is 1.15 percent or more ethanol by volume. When you give such clarity in your legislation—as good drafting does—as to what constitutes alcohol anything that sits outside that definition is therefore precluded.When you go to the primary legislation which of course is the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act 2012 many members of this House will remember that it required that supermarkets and grocery stores in particular have designated areas for the sale of alcohol. The reason for that was people were complaining that when you would come through a supermarket you would often be forced even if you were getting bread or milk to go through the area where there was the sale of alcohol. It would be a thoroughfare for the supermarket often because there were heavily discounted alcohol products within the supermarket and these were often used as advertising to draw people into supermarkets. Some debated whether or not there was loss-leading—we will not go there in this debate—but that was one of the things that was raised during that discussion.I remember at the time that we had people coming to the select committee and saying for instance: “I have suffered from alcohol issues in the past. I have overcome those but I feel confronted every time I walk into a supermarket.” So that is what section 114 was attempting to remedy. It required those suppliers to create these single areas and it had conditions around how they might be constructed. They could not be the most direct pedestrian route for instance between any entrance to the premises and its main body. They basically had to be able to be closed off in order to fulfil the requirements of off-licence hours and so on.Part of section 114 for instance (1)(a) says “no display or promotion of or advertisement for alcohol occurs on the premises at any place outside the alcohol area;” and section 114(2) says: “If the alcohol area has not been so described that it is divided into 2 or 3 sub-areas a single-area condition also takes effect as a condition that the licensee of the premises concerned must ensure that no display or promotion of or advertisement for a product that is not alcohol occurs on the premises at any place inside the alcohol area.” There are two things happening here: (1) you cannot advertise alcohol outside the designated area and (2) you cannot advertise any non-alcohol product within the designated area—obviously to stop that crossover—so you could not advertise bread in the alcohol area.But the problem with saying that a product is not alcohol as I have already raised is that “alcohol” is clearly defined as a product that contains 1.15 percent or more ethanol by volume. So immediately a DB Export Citrus drink that is intended to be a substitute for beer and that is zero percent alcohol—but is considered to be a beer substitute—could not therefore be advertised within the alcohol area. Obviously that is not what this Parliament intended. It is a by-product of some very tight drafting in order to try to achieve a particular outcome but it has had a knock-on effect.Here is my question though. That legislation was passed in 2012 and here we are debating this amendment in 2016. I know that the Food and Grocery Council has been involved in advocating around this. I know that for instance DB Breweries and groups like this became aware of the problem and have lobbied to have it changed and why would Parliament have a problem with allowing those products to be advertised in an alcohol area if we are trying to promote alternatives to alcohol including low-alcohol or no-alcohol options as a substitute. When was this issue first raised with the Minister of Justice?The reason that I am interested in this is that I am going to make a bit of an assumption here that most members of this House are likely to support this amendment bill. I am making an assumption; I might not be correct. But most of us I assume are wanting to promote if you are in an alcohol area an alternative to full-strength alcohol when you are in that area. I think that probably if we are in that trade-off situation then that is what we would want to do. Why was this not done in a Statutes Amendment Bill? It strikes me that for something like this—and statutes amendment bills are designed to be non-controversial where you are able to garner the support of the—Chris Bishop: It’s about alcohol.JACINDA ARDERN: —entire House. Oh write down your little note there for your piece of rebuttal Mr Bishop. But I would have thought—now I take your point. Alcohol has been treated as a conscience issue by this House before; not by your party because conscience issues do not exist for National. But on this side of the House we have started treating it as a health issue. So we would have looked at that as a party and said: “Does this have some benefit in terms of encouraging alternatives to the use of alcohol?”. Therefore we would have looked at that and if Amy Adams came to us and said “We would like it as part of a Statutes Amendment Bill.” we would have said: “Look that sounds reasonable.”—that sounds reasonable. Even if there might have been a question mark over whether you could treat an alcohol issue previously treated as a conscience vote as part of a Statutes Amendment Bill why not test it? It is up to this House to decide whether or not we universally agree as a Parliament that this is the kind of amendment we would be happy to make within a Statutes Amendment Bill. Anyone who has seen the way statutes amendment bills work would know that we get a little list from Simon Bridges with an individual amendment for every suggestion that has been made and an explanation of what it is and we tick yes or no—simple. Why did it not happen that way?The alternative is that we now have to go back to the select committee—a very robust process which of course allows the public to have their say on whether or not we want to promote no-alcohol and low-alcohol options for the public within our retail chains. The question could be asked: is that a great use of time? Why if we are going to have to be in a situation where we debate this little amendment did we not go the whole hog and review the other things the Government said that we would review as part of this Act? In 2010—and this is really important so I want to read it out. On 8 November 2010 in response to the fact that the Law Commission said: “We regard pricing policies as the central plank of any reform package aimed at reducing alcohol-related harm.” what was the one thing the Government’s bill on alcohol did not do? Anything on pricing. It did nothing at all. So what did Simon Power in his defence say? On 8 November 2010 “Mr Power says”—and I have got this from a Beehive release—“the Government is committed to investigating a minimum pricing regime but does not have the evidence base it needs either locally or internationally to set a minimum price immediately.”He gave retailers a year to give him that information and said that if they did not he would legislate to get the information. What happened? How is it that 6 years later we are in position where we do not have that information and we do not have any suggestion from the Government that it is going to look at it even though it gave us that guarantee? What happened? I will tell you what happened: Judith Collins happened. Simon Power left this House Judith Collins took over the portfolio and with one fell dismissive swoop—no talk of evidence or research—she wiped out the chance of doing any review on this. The only thing she said in response in the National Business Review was: “It’s important to understand the vast majority of New Zealanders are quite happy to have a glass of wine.” That was it—review over. Minimum pricing investigation gone. The evidence did not matter. Judith Collins declared it was unnecessary. So if the Government wants to do work—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Sorry to interrupt the honourable member. Her time has expired.CHRIS BISHOP (National): I take a great degree of interest in bills like this not the least of which for the reason that in the Hutt Valley we have got some fantastic breweries: Panhead Custom Ales up in Upper Hutt—now the world-renowned Panhead Custom Ales—Baylands Brewery in Pētone and Kererū Brewing up in Upper Hutt. So I take a great degree of interest in bills like this.It is a sensible bill as Jacinda Ardern made mention. Actually I had Retail New Zealand representatives in my office—it would have been about 6 to 8 months ago—and they raised this issue with me and I thought: “Well that actually seems pretty fair enough. That seems pretty sensible. It doesn’t destroy the intent of the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act.” It clearly seemed to be an absurdity created by poor drafting or an unintentionally bad outcome from the legislation. I thought “Well that seems pretty good. Maybe that’s a little member’s bill I can take through to the caucus and put on the floor of the House—a pretty sensible change we can make.” and then lo and behold a few days later a Government bill was introduced and I thought: “Oh that’s that opportunity gone for a sensible member’s bill.” My colleagues—Stuart Smith is laughing away here in the House—next to me on the left and right know that certainly on this side of the House that is you know a classic sort of member’s bill that we could advance from the Government backbenches.It is a sensible bill and it does fix an absurdity in the law that came about through the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act. Really we do not want a situation where you have low-alcohol beer or alcoholic products in next to fruit juice and in next to fizzy drink and all the other plethora of different types of beverages you can get. It makes sense that those beverages would be available in the alcohol area of the store and as other members have rightly pointed out—including the Minister in his introduction—it is right that those products can be seen as an alternative.I just want to briefly pick up on Jacinda Ardern’s comments towards the end of her speech about why this amendment is not in a Statutes Amendment Bill. Well the simple reason is that alcohol issues in this House have traditionally been treated as conscience issues and statutes amendment bills are reserved for those highly technical incredibly specific changes to statutes for which there will be obviously—obviously—overwhelming support around the Parliament. I would say that they are the sorts of bills where no reasonable person could disagree that it is a sensible change to make. It is the sort of change where you add an “and” into a section in an Act or an “or” here and there in order to make the policy intention clear. It is not appropriate—and it just shows Jacinda Ardern’s lack of knowledge of parliamentary procedure despite spending 8 years in this House—that she would think that something to do with alcohol would be considered appropriate for a Statutes Amendment Bill.She said: “Oh well the Labour Party now regards alcohol issues as a health issue.” Well that is all well and good for the Labour Party but it is actually not how those members regarded the last major piece of liquor legislation to go through this House in 2012 when we had this reasonably interesting scenario of the Labour Party splitting on individual lines for each division on the bill. For each stage in the Committee of the whole House debate on the bill a variety of Labour MPs would vote one way and a variety of Labour MPs would vote with their conscience another way. So that is a reasonably new development if indeed the Labour Party is going to regard something like alcohol—which has been regarded as a conscience issue for a very long time in this Parliament—as a health issue.Then right at the very end of her speech what did we hear? We heard Labour’s real cracker of a policy which is that the minimum pricing for alcohol should be $2 per standard drink—which is what it was going into 2014 election. So this is the idea that the minimum price of a bottle of wine in a supermarket will be $14 or $15. No no you cannot get your $8.99 sauvignon blanc with fish and chips on the way home on a Friday night—no. That is not allowed any more. No you cannot get your $13.99 bottle of Pinot noir or your bottle of chardonnay from the Hawke’s Bay—no. The minimum price is $2 and so all wine will have to cost $14 and above. The reason minimum pricing was rejected is that it does not work. It does not hit the very drinkers you are trying to make drink less and actually the irony of the whole thing is that it actually guarantees profits for alcohol companies. That is literally what minimum pricing does. It says that it is $2 per standard drink—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order!CHRIS BISHOP: —and guarantees pricing for alcohol companies. This is a sensible bill—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Come back—come back.CHRIS BISHOP: Yes I take your point Mr Assistant Speaker. I was moving slightly away from the bill but I was just responding to the speaker before me which I think is within the Standing Orders. It is a sensible bill. I commend it to the House.KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana): It is a pleasure to follow Mr Bishop on the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Display of Low-alcohol Beverages and Other Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill. I do remember in 2012 when the principal legislation came through this House. It was a conscience issue for members in the Labour Party and there was a rather large spreadsheet to make sure that our whips knew which way we were to vote. But in amongst all that the Government’s process was so good that it forgot to put this in that bill. So that is why we have to take up the time of this House and the time of a select committee—as Jacinda Ardern has said it is a very robust process—to fix up what I think the Minister called an oversight through this minor and technical bill.It used to be Simon Bridges who provided the House with his fix-up bills but this is another piece of legislation that we have got before us—and if people are watching yes we are debating where we put low-alcohol and non-alcoholic beer in a supermarket. That is what this piece of legislation does.If you are watching and you are wondering why we are talking about this back in 2012 when this House passed the principal piece of legislation there was an oversight and low-alcohol drinks and no-alcohol drinks were excluded from the special area that you see in the supermarket. So if you go to the supermarket now and you look at the options around your normal wine and beer you will not see low-alcohol beer and you will not see no-alcohol beer because the law forbids them to be placed with those products. It is a minor and technical bill but for many reasons we think it is an important one so we on this side of the House—in the Labour Party anyway—are going to be supporting this bill.There are two perspectives around this bill that I will talk about in my contribution. The first one is the simple one and it deals with the mechanics of the bill. From a customer’s point of view—as I think Mr Bishop mentioned in his speech—you do not want to go looking around the supermarket for your low-alcohol or no-alcohol option but that is the reality at the moment. If you are the retailer you also do not want to put a product that should naturally be with the family of products that is wine and beer with fizzy drinks and other juices. From a producer’s point of view—and I know that the Brewers Guild has been concerned about this. It does not want some of the products that it has been creating because of the new regime around drink-driving—that is low-alcohol or no-alcohol drinks—to be placed with other juices and other drinks either. It wants to make sure that those options are right next to the normal alcohol products that we see in the supermarket.But also from a public health perspective I think we want these products to be with their family of products so you want the low-alcohol beer to be with the full-strength alcohol beer. So if you are going home on a Friday night like Mr Bishop does for his fish and chips you can say: “Mmm I don’t want the Steinlager Pure. I will take the low-alcohol option.” That is the option that Mr Bishop is faced with on a Friday night and I think that is the best way for us to approach it—to give consumers options about another choice in terms of alcohol. So in the functional respect of this piece of legislation we think that is a good thing. It does give people a lower-grade option whether they want to drink and socialise and have a beer or to have a beer and have no alcohol. That is a good thing.The other perspective I would like to look at is one that Jacinda Ardern also looked at and that is how this bill has come about. I think this bill was introduced on 7 December 2015 and then at quite lightning speed got its first reading in the House. I think that speaks to the priorities of the Government. There are many other things that we on this side of the House think that the Government could prioritise. You could prioritise maybe the 6-year long wait that we have had for the Radio New Zealand Amendment Bill to pass through this House.Peeni Henare: How long?KRIS FAAFOI: Six years. We could prioritise safer houses and warmer houses or a whole lot of other things in the health area and in education where we think you should get in there fast and get them done. But what is getting done fast here? Getting a beer. Having a beer. You have to wonder where the priorities of this Government are when what it makes happen fast is the ability to buy beer down at the supermarket. Mechanically I have no problem with that because I do not think it is such a big issue but when you look at it in terms of the priorities of the Government I think there are some genuine questions that could be asked by the voters out there just saying: “Hmm is this as much of a priority as other things that could be put on the agenda?”. I think that you know there are genuinely other things that are of a higher priority than low-alcohol and no-alcohol beers at the supermarket.One of the other aspects of this bill—and it is a minor and technical bill—is that it gives a company the ability to hold a licence. I think one of the issues that you can have with that is that if someone is to hold a function it has had to be an individual who held the liquor licence but a company could not do that. I think if an individual within a company had to get the licence and something went wrong it was the individual who was up for any penalty if the liquor licence was not adhered to. So this piece of legislation does tweak the principal Act and allows a company to be a licensee in this sense which I think is a good thing for the protection of the people who are working for those companies.But in general going back to the mechanics of the bill it does get rid of a piece of red tape that I think was an oversight back in 2012. As I said it was a time when there were lots of options on the table in terms of what could be ruled in and what could be ruled out of the sale and supply of alcohol legislation at the time and this one got left out. I do not know how it happened—the Government was in charge of the process at the time so maybe someone from that side of the House could explain to us how that happened—but I do not think it is the best use of this House’s time to be arguing over or debating this.There was an argument put forward by my colleague Jacinda Ardern about whether this amendment could have been contained within a Statutes Amendment Bill. Then Mr Bishop rebutted her comments saying that we did not know whether or not this whole House would have agreed to this but we could have saved at least 4½ hours in this place and a select committee process if the Government had come to other parties and asked: “Could we do it in a different way? Could we do this in a Statutes Amendment Bill?”. I think that would have been a much tidier process and a much more efficient process and would have allowed other priorities of the day to be put through this House rather than this piece of legislation that is before us right now.A couple of people on this side of the House have asked about something that is a little bit quirky in this bill and that is mead.Hon Member: Talk about mead.KRIS FAAFOI: Ha ha! So let me talk a little bit about mead. There is a meadery not in my electorate but in the electorate of Rongotai—in Houghton Bay I believe. If you do not know what mead is it is a honey-based alcohol. I am a whisky person myself as someone over across the hall will know. Mead is not necessarily my drop but if you are a big fan of mead—and I know there are some fans of mead out there—this piece of legislation also covers mead. So if you are one of the very small percentage of New Zealanders whom I believe would enjoy a good drop of mead—I think Mr Mark Mitchell would; he looks like a honey man to me—then this piece of legislation also covers mead. So do not worry the Government has taken care of the mead fans as well in this piece of legislation. I do not think that looking after the mead fans in this country is a massive priority but hey that is what the Government has decided to do.There are things other than mead that this House could be talking about. So maybe in the future the Government would like to take a different approach to these kinds of bills and try to look to a Statutes Amendment Bill as another way to progress this through other than wasting the time of this House on an oversight that it made when it passed the principal legislation.ALFRED NGARO (National): I rise to take a call on this bill. I remember coming into the House in 2011 after the 2011 election—so I was coming in at the tail end of a round of consultation in our communities around the sale of alcohol and liquor in our communities. I know that prior to that in the community there was a round of consultation that was quite significant and I was part of facilitating some of those meetings that they had.One of the key concerns for the communities at that time was the binge drinking and especially the harmful behaviour and crime and the public health problems that were coming out of that—domestic violence and so forth—which was a contributor to some of the challenges and issues that our communities face. Out of that the key concern that came out through the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act of 2012 was also the ability to allow communities to be able to have a say in that consultation around some of the regulations especially with regard to territorial authorities and local bodies as well. So that was a concern that was raised but was also then met through the legislation which allowed for that to happen as well.I think one of the things that was important in that was how we could ensure that there was a restriction and not relax the laws but at the same time allow for a way for those restrictions to definitely address the issues around binge drinking. So in 2012—and being in the House when that legislation came through—it was coming through at the end of that consultation seeing that legislation come through. Mr Faafoi talked about that piece of legislation and I suppose minimised the extent of what this House will do but this bill is intended to correct I suppose unforeseen circumstances although the Act has done a significant amount of work. I do remember and recall though in that time in 2013—I think there were about 20 Supplementary Order Papers that came through from the Labour caucus. So there was a little bit of confusion—Kris Faafoi: Because we care.ALFRED NGARO: Well yes it did say that you cared but there was probably a lot of confusion that reigned through there in 2013. Lianne Dalziel also talked about these things so there was some confusion. On this side of the House there is no confusion.I think it is very clear that though there are minor changes they are significant enough because obviously there is a concern to just remedy some of the unforeseen circumstances. I know the fact is that when we do talk about those circumstances and those changes in certain places where people do shop and frequent they do want to ensure—I suppose it is the separation really where you can go to a place where there is non-alcoholic and low-alcoholic beverages. People may want to see that. It is part of a change in lifestyle. That may be part of it.So although these may be small technical changes we believe it is important to again ensure that the substantive work of the Act that we are talking about—the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act of 2012—continues on so that it continues to be the legislation that it was intended to be. Most important it is about reducing the binge drinking giving consultation and giving the ability for local communities to be empowered to consult and to look at the regulations that would be important for the localised issues in their communities. In fact I remember some of the ads that were on. One of them was I think at the Ōtara flea market where people got up and were trying to say to people: “Have your say.” So they were having their say and we think that is important.I do commend these changes that have come back into the House. We do think that they are important. They are small and they are technical but I think they are changes that will be important to the overall—and I want to continue to emphasise that—essence and the intent of the legislation. So with my brief statements to this House I commend this bill to the House.KEVIN HAGUE (Green): I want to begin this contribution by making a bit of a comparison between two bills because the bill that the House considered immediately prior to this the Substance Addiction (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Bill is one that also deals with alcohol-related issues. It does so from a health perspective. It actually takes some measures that were in the law and that largely had a justice orientation to them and replaces them with new measures that have a health orientation and specifically a harm-reduction orientation. And yet in the debate on this bill we are back to dealing with alcohol-related issues and back to dealing with trying to reduce the amount of harm associated with alcohol consumption in our community but doing so from a justice lens.I would urge the Government perhaps to think about that because here we have a bill that has been introduced on behalf of the Minister of Justice. It is going to be referred to the Justice and Electoral Committee a select committee that in fact—with all due respect to the members on that committee—does not have expertise around health issues and around harm-reduction issues. The signal that that sends to the community is that the Government has not yet made the shift in thinking from dealing with alcohol as an issue of justice to dealing with alcohol as an issue of harm. It is a shift that the Government ought to have made.The Act that this bill amends came from the Law Commission’s report. The Law Commission’s report is called Alcohol in Our Lives: Curbing the Harm. It set out to reduce harm. The Law Commission in its recommendations believed that the Act that we ought to have set up in 2012—actually the Law Commission thought we ought to have done it prior to that—should have been called the “Alcohol Harm Reduction Act” not the Sale and Supply of Liquor Act. Once again this is an illustration of the failure to actually make that shift in thinking.The evidence about harm reduction is extremely strong. We know pretty much—or at least we do in the health sector—that changes to alcohol-related behaviour do not come about from prohibition. Equally they do not come about from giving people education which is perhaps counterintuitive. It turns out that education—giving people information—may be a necessary prerequisite but the thing that actually changes people’s consumption behaviour is change to the environment. And that is why the Law Commission recommended that we should address the availability of alcohol—where it could be purchased when it could be purchased and the licensing hours. It recommended that we address pricing both minimum pricing and the excise tax and it recommended that we introduce controls around advertising and sponsorship. All of those changes were recommended in order to change the environment in which alcohol purchase and consumption takes place.So this bill is a welcome step forward. It does actually address that issue of a person perhaps in their supermarket or some other shop being confronted with aisles’ worth of alcohol and not actually seeing the low-alcohol options there by providing that direct availability of that low-alcohol option at the point of purchase. I would agree with the point that Chris Bishop made which is it must surely have been an oversight of this Parliament not to have incorporated that change at the time; similarly the change around liquor-licensing and companies. These were oversights of the House and of the Government. I guess my reflection would be that the mood that the Government was in at the time that that bill was making its way through Parliament probably made it not conducive to careful thought about the detail. The Government was not in a mood for looking at the detail or for countenancing any change to the bill that it put in front of the House.I agree with some of the other speakers who have said that it is a shame that the Government has not included some of the other measures that have also become apparent since we passed that bill into law—the changes for example that local government has called out for such as some protection for communities against the bullying behaviour of the industry when they attempt to put in place local alcohol plans. There is the evidence that has come to light since we passed that bill and produced the Act around the balance of minimum pricing and the use of excise tax to actually ensure that we reduce consumption without taking an unbalanced approach. I also think that it is a shame that this bill has not been used to implement the recommendations of the panel that was led by Graham Lowe about restricting sponsorship and marketing activities from the industry. So those were all things that the Government could have used this bill to do given that in fact Parliament was setting out to change the principal Act by this bill. So the opportunity was lost.Ultimately what the House will need to do is stop addressing this kind of issue with piecemeal legislation. What we need instead—and I have spoken on a number of occasions in this House about this—is a piece of legislation that provides a single integrated legal framework for the regulation of all of the drugs both those that are currently legal and those that are currently illegal. This legislation should be health-based not justice-based and the Government clearly has a step further to go in that direction. It should be aimed at reducing harm by using principles around harm reduction that are in the health sector and with which we are extremely familiar. So we should be preventing the harm in the first place if we can; mitigating it if we cannot in a stepwise process; and using the regulatory tools that we have available such as age availability price restricting the marketing licensing or perhaps prescription in some cases. And there is the further principle of proportionality—regulating those substances in proportion to the risk that they might cause health-related harm.A framework like that is the right approach and that approach would be one that pulls together different strands. It would use perhaps a base such as that which the House set up with the Psychoactive Substances Act because that is precisely what that framework does. It would pull in alcohol legislation tobacco legislation and indeed the Misuse of Drugs Act and substances currently controlled using that Act to actually produce for this country a genuinely 21st century framework that minimises the harm to this country and its citizens from drug use. Thank you.DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): New Zealand First will support this bill. The two corrections it makes are OK: firstly permitting low and non-alcohol beer wine and mead to be displayed for sale in a single area of supermarkets and secondly clarifying that any company can hold a licence under the Act. But big deal! What a pathetic little bill when you think about the magnitude of the harm that alcohol abuse does in this country. This bill is just tinkering when what is really needed is a full overhaul of the 2012 legislation which was itself a piece of legislation that was so changed so altered so reduced and is now so pathetic that it really did not make much difference and the problems that it sought to address are still with us.The truth is that the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act 2012 had generated at that time very high expectations amongst the public that those reforms would be comprehensive and would make a difference as was in fact recommended by the Law Commission. Those expectations were grossly not met. This Government’s attempts over all these recent years at the reforms needed around alcohol have been an utter and complete failure. The drinking culture amongst the young is getting worse not better. The big commercial interests in alcohol are obviously feeling very satisfied with this Government whose arm they have twisted up its back. They will be well and truly off the hook and doing well as an alcohol industry all because of the utter inaction and pathetic response of this Government to the public’s expectations of realistic reform. The 2012 Act was an opportunity lost for meaningful and effective reform. It was an opportunity to turn back the tide of alcohol abuse especially amongst the young.In New Zealand First’s view there are a number of things that this bill should now be doing instead of these pathetic little measures which will make little or no difference. Amongst those there were three particular things that we in New Zealand First felt needed attention. I might say that we did not treat those matters as conscience issues—we were unified. We knew what we wanted as a party and we said it at the time. These were those three things: the first was the failure to return the age for purchasing alcohol to 20 years. That would have really resulted in a significant reduction in consumption by that age group. It would have given them also a good signal that they needed to try to change the culture of binge drinking that has developed amongst that age group and that continues unchecked today.The second matter was the failure to deal with the problem of those ready-to-drinks—those sugary alcohol-loaded easy-to-drink beverages that are so popular amongst the young and that can get them so drunk so quickly. Their sugar levels are very high. The drinks are very attractive and yet very harmful.This bill should be attending to some of those things not just what can be presented and how in a supermarket. What we are seeing is that those problem drinks are still being pushed and are not being limited. They are condemned by the experts and the Law Commission itself. They are the most potentially harmful to young people. Those are the things that this bill is not addressing. Instead it is addressing what can be displayed on supermarket shelves. Well that is pathetic. It is not enough.The third issue—and others have mentioned it—is the need for targeted minimum pricing. I would say to Mr Bishop that nobody ever intended to increase the price of wine but other alcohol drinks should have minimum pricing and that can be done through excise taxes and other means. It would have been worthwhile. The Law Commission recommended it. Other experts recommended it. Mr Bishop may not understand it but that just means that he does not understand the issues.Chris Bishop: I understand it perfectly well Denis.DENIS O’ROURKE: That just means he does not understand the issues and he thinks the experts and the Law Commission are wrong. In fact it is he and his party who are wrong.I will finish on this. Although this pathetic little bill is supportable—it does some good; hardly any—it will not be noticed it will not make any difference and the problem will still get worse whether it is passed or not. Much much more is needed by this Government and hopefully the next time it looks at alcohol reform it will do something worthwhile.BRETT HUDSON (National): It is with pleasure I rise to support the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Display of Low-alcohol Beverages and Other Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill. For the benefit of the member Denis O’Rourke who has just taken his seat I say that the bill is very carefully and clearly pitched at being a small remedial bill to address a couple of issues that arose and that had not been considered in the last set of reforms. It is not intended to be a major reform or review of the sale and supply of alcohol. So it is no great surprise then that it does just what it says it is going to do and if Mr O’Rourke cannot quite fathom that then I am afraid he is beyond our help. For the benefit of another member who spoke a little before and who said that he felt that this was going through a long process in order to achieve some small things—well I have some advice or some suggestions for Mr Faafoi too. If he thinks that it is a long and involved process to make a couple of small changes he could help by just taking much shorter calls. The quality of content would be the same and the time would be much less.This bill will simply address a couple of unforeseen consequences of the earlier reforms. Those earlier reforms have not actually made any negative changes around the supply of those low-alcohol beverages. It is just that unfortunately it has meant that they could not be displayed or promoted in the alcohol section of the establishment—say the supermarket—where the law demands that the other alcoholic beverages must be sold.For instance at the moment if an organisation really wanted to it could place the mead or the low-alcohol wine along with the vegetables. I for one do not normally make an association between a mead and a swede—a swede and a mead I see no need—and I do think that it is absolutely right that those low-alcohol beverages should in fact be restricted to the same area of the supermarket or liquor store as the other alcoholic beverages. I think it is a very sensible move to tighten it up in that sense.But I will remind the House that although there were some unintended consequences of the earlier reforms they have not led to those beverages being more accessible but just perhaps to them being displayed in the wrong area. I look forward to the passage of this bill through the House and to the much shorter calls from Mr Faafoi and his colleagues—and that way it will be wrapped up a lot sooner. I commend this bill to the House.PEENI HENARE (Labour—Tāmaki Makaurau): Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Thank you very much for this opportunity. I rise to make a short contribution to the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Display of Low-alcohol Beverages and Other Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill. As a father and as a family man you roll into the supermarket and you are always mindful of what your children will see. I think some of the members this evening have raised very good points about a broader look at the amendments that could be made to make this bill a better bill to make sure that the original intention of this particular piece of legislation will meet the requirements as expected in our community. What those are really about is minimising the harmful effects of alcohol in our communities.Some of the members—and the member Alfred Ngaro has mentioned it this evening in his contribution but I am mindful of the proliferation of the number of alcohol outlets in particular in South Auckland—particularly in my electorate of Tāmaki Makaurau and in the good electorate of Manukau East the electorate of my colleague Jenny Salesa. Many of the communities have spoken out against the proliferation of these alcohol outlet stores. I think about those communities when we consider that large supermarket chains—large supermarkets where you can go and purchase alcohol—tend to get these kinds of amendments through by successful lobbying. Although I appreciate that when you go into a supermarket you do not want to be inundated with advertisements about alcohol and you want your children to enjoy the experience of shopping without having to see these things it is important that we do have specific areas for the sale of alcohol in supermarkets. But I do want the House to reflect on what this means in the communities in particular in Tāmaki Makaurau and in South Auckland.The Labour Party does support this bill. In my contribution I want to pick up on some of the points made by my colleagues on this side of the House. One of them—and I think the main one about this particular bill—is that the health consequences arising from this bill should be considered. We on this side take that very seriously because as my colleague Carmel Sepuloni mentioned in respect of the previous bill in front of the House our offices deal with the consequences of alcohol addiction and drug addiction and the problems that ensue in communities. They come into our office where we have to deal with our good constituents and we try our best.It is relatively minor and relatively technical this particular amendment but it does highlight a greater need. Some of the contributions this evening have mentioned the greater need and that is about the advertising of liquor in general. We know that the Labour view when the first piece of legislation went through was that we needed to seriously consider the harmful effects of alcohol sponsorship of sports teams. For some reason—it is just a Kiwi thing. You go to a game of rugby and you have a beer and a hotdog and chips. Although most of us have enjoyed those times I think that if we are really serious about this as an issue moving forward into the future it is important that we make sure that these pieces of legislation are substantial—that they deal with the issues fairly and finally in one hit. It does not mean that we keep coming back to tinker with these types of important pieces of legislation.Far too often in this House in my short time as a member that is what we seem to be doing—coming back here and tinkering with substantial pieces of legislation when of course because of the expediency agenda of this Government pieces of legislation are missing these things. They are missing what the Government might see as small oversights but really in the bigger scheme of things if it had been done properly and if it had been done right at the beginning then we would not have to be here wasting the time of the House. Instead we could be considering—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. The time has come for me to leave the Chair.Debate interrupted.