Borrows Chester: Alcohol Reform Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Borrows Chester: Alcohol Reform Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 13 September 2011. Volume:675;Page:21196. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) 
: 
 It has been a privilege to chair through the Justice and Electoral Committee the debate that has been circulating on alcohol over the last term. It is interesting to note too that the previous Government introduced the Sale and Supply of Liquor and Liquor Enforcement Bill on 6 August 2008 which the previous speaker Lianne Dalziel spoke on which was just a few days before the House rose with the Government having spent most of that previous year debating such hugely important things as the Electoral Finance Act. Subsequent debates went on through that time and the Electoral Finance Act was railroaded through the select committee process. 
I have been through these debates a couple of times in this term firstly in debating the bill promoted by the previous speaker which was given its first reading by the incoming National Government in March 2009 and then in transacting this current bill the Alcohol Reform Bill which was brought to the House by the Hon Simon Power. That came after the Law Commission was asked to bring forward the report back in respect of its discussion paper so that the bill could reflect as many of those recommendations as possible. 
I am proud to have been in charge of steering this legislation through the Justice and Electoral Committee. I thank select committee members for the way in which they engaged in a bipartisan manner with the several thousand who engaged with the committee in bringing their submissions. About 1500 of those gave their own written submissions and several thousand more sent in form submissions. There were over 90 hours of hearings that this committee went through. 
I thank those people who previous to this select committee process contributed their expertise through this process and through the public debate. Gerard Vaughan Doug Sellman and Paul Quigley are individuals in particular who have gained some notoriety—and quite justifiably so—for the way in which they have brought before the public of New Zealand the issues around the consumption of alcohol. 
I thank those community groups like the Glen Innes Drug and Alcohol Action Group and similar groups in Mangere Otara Christchurch and other parts around the country because this is a process that people have engaged with. I reject very roundly the suggestion from the previous speaker that the Government and Government members were prepared to engage only with corporates because that is total crap. In fact Government members engaged with those particular people and with those alcohol action groups not only as members of the select committee but also as individual members of Parliament and as caucus committees as did those members from the other side of the House. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: That’s not what I said and don’t use language like that—that’s revolting. 
CHESTER BORROWS 
: If they want to sit incredibly high or tall in a saddle—like that member on her high horse—I tell them they have got the wrong end of the stick. 
A number of themes have come out of the public discussion on this debate and one is that we cannot legislate for a culture. We do have the problem of a binge drinking culture in this country and we need to deal with that problem. We will not deal with it by way of legislation but we can assist a change in behaviour through legislation and I believe that that is what we are achieving through this bill—albeit we will not turn round 80 years of liberalisation from the times of prohibition in one bite. I do not believe that any Government of any hue would be able to do that. 
The other underlying—or overriding—theme that has come through all of this debate is that everybody’s drinking is a problem except my own. I do not mean mine personally but I mean ours individually as we discuss it. Everybody believes that we have a big problem with alcohol in this country but they refuse to look at the manner in which they themselves drink or to tailor that according to the research and the study that we understand. 
The third point is that everybody in the sector points at somebody else for creating the problems around alcohol. If we talk to people who are running bars and those who are managers of on-licensed premises we find that they point to individual responsibility the drinking that people do before they turn up at bars—that is the level of alcohol people have on board before they start drinking—and whether bar managers can determine the level of intoxication of their own patrons. They throw it back on those patrons. If people want to talk about supermarkets and the accessibility and availability of alcohol—the availability of cheap alcohol as the previous speaker said—we can quite rightly make the point that alcohol has never been as cheap as it is today. It is unrealistically cheap in respect of other commodities and it is unrealistically cheap in respect of the cost of production and not only is the supply of alcohol as cheaply as it is unfair to the producers but it creates a huge social problem. It is interesting to note that as quick as the previous speaker was to seize all the benefits of the legislation she previously put forward her legislation never addressed minimum pricing. In fact that issue came before the committee time and time again and thankfully— 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: It came out of the Law Commission report. 
CHESTER BORROWS 
: Well some of us did not need the Law Commission’s report to tell us that there was an issue about minimum pricing and that that needed to be addressed. In this bill it is being addressed albeit it is there as a facility for regulation. We are saying to the retail industry that retailers had better supply us with the information they have in relation to costs and the mechanisms for costing within supermarkets or we will deal to them via regulation and via this legislation. I have already indicated that this is a statement made to alcohol retailers. 
The point is too that a number of the crucial issues and critical issues around drinking have been addressed through this legislation albeit it has not gone as far as a number of people would have liked. I was at a public meeting in Manurewa just last week and I spoke to a group of people there. Those who were attending the meeting were very disappointed that they had not achieved their end goal. I said to them: “You need to be aware of how you have changed the debate and you need to be conscious of the fact that you have made significant changes in turning round the debate from one of liberalisation to one of constraint.” When I reminded the groups that they needed to take some heart from that they responded in two different ways and in the manner in which one would expect activists to respond. Half of them said: “Well we’ve got so far to go and we’re looking forward without looking behind to see how far we’ve come.” and the other half of the group were so grateful for the fact that the Parliament had taken cognisance of what the group was saying and gratitude for the fact that all their hard work had achieved a number of things. 
I have to say that it was very good to have the input of Sir Geoffrey Palmer and the Law Commission report on this issue. In fact I think he believed at one stage that he was so popular he could come and do a “Don Brash” on the Labour Party and seek to roll his good friend Phil Goff for the leadership. However I understand that he has taken retirement or realignment in respect of that. 
Mr Assistant Speaker Robertson is giving me the signal to wind up and I understand that. It is just the one finger and will not appear on the front page of the  
New Zealand Herald 
. 
We have addressed community ownership of these problems by allowing communities to be able to dictate how alcohol will be sold and supplied within their areas and that has been a long time coming. We have differentiated between supermarkets and dairies to make sure that alcohol cannot be sold within dairies because when the ability to sell alcohol was extended to supermarkets back in the day that was where Parliament intended it would go. We have addressed the purchase age of alcohol and there has been a constraint a restriction a lifting of the age to purchase alcohol to take away. That is a good thing. 
Parental supply is something where through this bill we have put the responsibility of supply of alcohol to minors back on to parents albeit there is not a legislated drinking-age. When the select committee investigated what that drinking age would be there was no consensus. I have covered for instance the restrictions on price. 
I finish by making one point and that is to go back to what I said about the sector. Every part of the alcohol industry points to another as being responsible for the evils of alcohol. Every problem with youth drinking starts from an adult wanting to push the envelope push the boundary in respect of what is acceptable. New product designs the way alcohol is sold and the mixes of energy drinks and alcohol are just some indications. It is over to us as legislators in this Parliament and it is over to those people involved in the industry to take the lead and take the responsibility albeit this is about individual responsibility. Thank you.