Parker David: Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Extended licensing hours during Rugby World Cup) Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeParker David: Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Extended licensing hours during Rugby World Cup) Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 12 August 2015. Volume:707;Page:5734. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): I begin by giving the indication that you sought from the Chair as to whether parties are addressing this as a conscience issue. The Labour Party is addressing the Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Extended licensing hours during Rugby World Cup) Bill as a conscience issue and would like the Speaker to conduct the voting accordingly. There are a number of ironies in this bill. The first is that if you are talking about responsible drinking then maybe you should have a provision in this bill that prohibits people from being on licensed premises when they are meant to be voting in this House. The second irony is that actually this would not be nearly as necessary in this country if it had not been for the fact that parties like the ACT Party have so undermined public broadcasting that you cannot see most of these matches on public television.David Seymour: Aw! Tragic tragic.Hon DAVID PARKER: It is also true. You know if the member really wanted to do good in New Zealand he would have brought forward a bill here that said that the same rules should apply in New Zealand in respect of major sporting events on television as apply in Australia. Every time there is a major sporting event like this that goes up for tender in Australia—you know the Rugby World Cup or the like—public television rights have to be in the rights that are offered. Yes you can have Sky having all of the rights to the paid version of the game but you have got to have amongst those who succeed at tender a public option. Those people compete and they have got to pay advertising and they do not get it for free—David Seymour: They should have to give you a television too and a house to put it in for having a television without a house.Hon DAVID PARKER: No the member is so ideologically blinkered that he will never agree that New Zealanders should have the right to see the major sporting events. He gets all jingoistic and says how this is the Kiwi way and we all need to be able to watch our rugby but he does not think they should be able to do it on public broadcasting in the way that it happens in other countries like Australia and the United Kingdom. I think it is shameful that in this country we have got to the point where people unless they can afford pay-per-view television cannot actually watch these major events on television.I for one will be supporting this bill to select committee. I agree that it should be a conscience issue. I am not quite sure whether we should be too broad in the application of this to all sporting events. You know there are a lot of licensed premises that are very close to residential areas and they do have time limits. Indeed when I am in Auckland I live 20 metres away from licensed premises and they are loud and that is the reason why they have time limits on when they shut because otherwise they are too disruptive to adjacent residential users. We are thankfully past the point when we used to have a few enormous taverns that were generally in commercial areas and were separated from residential areas. It is good that we have more socially responsible drinking and smaller institutions but we do need to take care that we get the balance right between the rights of adjacent people to have a night’s sleep and the rights of those who want to have a good party. But in respect of the forthcoming Rugby World Cup it is good that we are through this legislation facilitating the ability of New Zealanders to go and watch this at a public venue where they can see it on television because they cannot see it on television at home because the current laws do not require a public option.