Roy Heather: Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill (No 3) — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Roy Heather: Subordinate Legislation (Confirmation and Validation) Bill (No 3) — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 14 December 2004. Volume:622;Page:17803. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
HEATHER ROY (ACT) 
: 
 I rise to speak to Part 2 and in particular I wish to refer to subpart 2 “Validation of payments under levy notices under Alcohol Advisory Council Act 1976”. I would like to go back to the beginning of the process when the Minister of Health wrote a letter to each of the parties asking for their support for this part. She said: “It has recently become apparent that even though the aggregate Alcohol Advisory Council levy has been assessed in accordance with the Act the levy is not and in fact is unable to be apportioned to the classes of liquor in accordance with the Act. As a result the annual levy notices that fix the levy rates for each class of liquor including the present 2004-05 notice have not set the levy rates in accordance with the Act.” 
It is interesting that we have got to this point 21 years down the track that we have had those notices in place for all that time and that in fact the levies have not been applied appropriately. When looking into this first proposal I spoke to several of the people involved in the industry and asked them what they thought of it. They said that it had really only just been brought to their attention but it seemed they were in general agreement that these loopholes should be fixed. But they were really quite within their rights. It would seem that the law has not been administered legally so they were quite within their rights to have made quite a fuss about this and perhaps to have even sought reimbursement for inappropriate levying. 
There were several problems. The formula to calculate the proportion of the levy rate for spirits requires the use of the quantity of proof litres for spirits but in fact the calculations were made in various different ways and in some cases were made according to the amount of alcohol content particularly in liquor. 
However the industry was keen that these loopholes were rectified and it acted I felt in a very cooperative way. But when the industry was invited to submit to the Regulations Review Committee the Distilled Spirits Association of New Zealand raised some other very valid points. The Regulations Review Committee determined that in fact these issues were beyond the scope of the bill but these are still very relevant points and I invite the Minister in the chair Dr Cullen to perhaps give some indication to this Committee and to the industry itself—particularly the Distilled Spirits Association—as to where the Government might go or whether it will in fact address these other points relating to levies that the association has raised. 
There were three in particular and they are summed up very well in the commentary on the bill. The first issue is the proposal of a new model of product classification in bands based on alcohol content. Secondly it suggested a requirement that information about how levy rates are determined are provided to interested parties. Thirdly there is a suggestion that requirements for officials to consult with and provide advance notice of levies to the industry should be addressed. I would ask the Minister in the chair to give an indication of where he thinks the Government might go and whether it is prepared to take these into account. I realise that it is beyond the scope of this particular piece of legislation but it was this legislation that raised these issues and brought the distillers before the select committee and I invite the Minister to comment. 
ACT will be supporting this bill. We feel that this is a loophole that is long overdue to be fixed and it is very good of both sides of the House I think to say that these issues should have been addressed previously. But I would welcome some comment from the Minister on those points.