Harawira Hone: Alcohol Reform Bill — First Reading 
Harawira Hone: Alcohol Reform Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:668;Page:15266] 
HONE HARAWIRA (Maori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) 
: 
 Today is Armistice Day—the day we remember the deaths of soldiers and civilians who were sacrificed on the altar of war and greed. Today as we consider the Alcohol Reform Bill we also remember the death of soldiers and civilians who were sacrificed on the altar of ignorance drunkenness profit greed and the ongoing unwillingness of Governments of both persuasions to put an end to the destruction visited upon all of our communities by alcohol in all its pernicious and evil forms. And today as we consider this bill we also remember the families who bear the scars of lives lost to cirrhosis of the liver cancer depression alcoholism and heart disease and those families suffering the lasting effects of drink-driving and alcohol-related falls drownings poisoning assault and injury and of foetal alcohol syndrome. 
As we think of that let us also remember that back in 1769 before alcohol even got here botanist Joseph Banks noted that for Maori “water is their universal drink” and that Maori showed great repugnance for liquor. That was a comment backed up by a 1999 health services research centre study which said that “Prior to contact with Pakeha Maori lived in one of the few parts of the world that had never developed alcoholic beverages. The Inuit people of Canada the Trukese of Micronesia and a number of Native American tribes share with Maori the attribution of being indigenous peoples who did not develop alcoholic drinks.” Yet for all of that the problem of alcoholism within Maori society had gotten so bad that even before the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi European captains were moved to lodge formal complaints against Tamati Waka Nene and other chiefs who were boarding their ships even before they had berthed in the Hokianga Harbour to find and destroy the barrels of liquor that were being brought into Tai Tokerau. 
It is a sad commentary on our liquor laws in Aotearoa today that even as that historical evidence was being given at the Ngapuhi hearings in Panguru a few weeks ago Sonny Tau chairperson of Ngapuhi was condemning the opening of yet another liquor store in Kaikohe in 2010. It is sad too that not long after the Treaty was signed a petition was presented to Parliament by Haimona Te Aoterangi in 1874 which said “Liquor impoverishes us; our children are not born healthy because parents drink to excess and the child suffers; it muddles men’s brains and they in ignorance sign important documents and get into trouble thereby; grog also turns the intelligent men of the Maori race into fools … grog is the cause of various diseases which afflict us.” 
So today we have this bill to repeal to replace and to amend a whole bunch of laws but to what end? Maori continue to drink and die in the same horrific and unacceptable numbers in 2010 as they did in 1810. For Maori there is greater likelihood of harmful effects from alcohol than for non-Maori twice the rate of severe alcohol-related problems and four times the rate of alcohol-related deaths. Yet Governments of both persuasions continue to tinker with a framework dedicated to achieving bugger all. 
While Maori continue to suffer and die at appalling rates politicians prattle on about people needing to have a more mature attitude to alcohol. They introduce bills like this one with licensing exemptions parental consent requirements regulation provisions clauses about local authority policy and the like and an absolute cast-iron guarantee that very little change will come about as a result of this bill going through the House. 
I hope Maori will make submissions on this bill that recognise the history of non-alcoholism and the impact of colonisation and the continuing destruction brought about by alcohol. I hope they will but I will not be surprised if they do not. Maori have tried direct action. We have done the petition buzz we have marched we have haka-ed we have submitted and we have done the rahui but for what? So that we can do it all again while we watch the statistics shuffle around and our communities continue to suffer? No we need a better focus we need a new strategy and we need another angle. 
The only angle that might work is the one that Tariana has put before this House: Whanau Ora. Unless we can change the thinking of whanau we will not change the environment in which alcoholism runs rampant and unless we can do that we will be going nowhere fast. We need to support whanau-focused alcohol and drug addiction programmes and recovery and restoration services and we need to take a collective approach to build on the strengths of whanau to reduce alcohol-related harm. 
So the Maori Party will support this bill but we will do so reluctantly because we know that tinkering around with legislation will not fix the problem. Only courage will do that. I suspect that there are too many people in this House whose courage will last only until they are offered their next drink. Kia ora tatou.