Robson Matt: Sale of Liquor (Youth Alcohol Harm Reduction)  Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Robson Matt: Sale of Liquor (Youth Alcohol Harm Reduction)  Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:626;Page:21165] 
Hon MATT ROBSON (Deputy Leader—Progressive) 
: 
 I would like to thank all my parliamentary colleagues who have contributed on the issues before us at the first reading of the Sale of Liquor (Youth Alcohol Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill. They have in the main kept out personal issues and looked at the facts. Many of the varied opinions honestly expressed from sometimes very different points of view are of course also being articulated at dinner tables in sports clubs and at social gatherings up and down New Zealand. I believe that the bill is facilitating an honest and a robust public discussion on recent trends in alcohol consumption and alcohol harm and on what steps we can reasonably take through our representative Parliament to help turn the tide against some of the heartbreak that too often accompanies youth binge drinking. 
In 1999 Parliament voted by a small margin to lower the minimum purchasing age of alcohol to 18 from 20. At the time our party for philosophical reasons reckoned that 18-year-olds should have the right to purchase alcohol at licensed liquor outlets. Although in 1999 we voted against the final reading of the bill that was for other reasons—principally that the liberalisation of supermarket alcohol sales was too permissive. 
But regardless of how we as individuals or parties voted in 1999 we have now had 6 years to assess the evidence of the impact of the law change. I believe that a majority here today will vote for this bill to proceed to the select committee where we politicians can have a breather from speech-making and can focus on listening instead. At the select committee we can listen to the evidence that will be put before us and to the experience of those at the front line in public health. We can listen to parents. We can listen to principals teachers and sports coaches. Maybe we can listen to some of the liquor licensing control front-line workers to the people at Alcohol Healthwatch the Public Health Association and the New Zealand Drug Foundation and to family doctors who say that our 1999 decision was “a disaster”. We can at the select committee listen to family planning health professionals and to those working to combat the transmission of sexual disease among the young. 
As we listen and take notes we need to keep in mind some of these basic questions. Did the decision to lower the alcohol purchasing age by 2 years in 1999 in turn lower by 2 years the effective age at which minors in our country can easily access alcohol? In other words if 17-year-olds easily accessed alcohol via older friends before 1999 did the law change make it easier for 15-year-olds to access alcohol from their 18-year-old mates? Did the law change exacerbate under-18-year-old youth binge drinking and associated problems such as road accidents unplanned pregnancies and so forth? Did the law change exacerbate hospital admissions for heavily intoxicated 13 to 17-year-olds? What is the evidence from North America where society tried to lower the alcohol purchasing age but then reverted to a higher age? Would it likely make any material difference to youth binge drinking habits if broadcast advertising rules were altered? Would it likely make any material difference to youth binge drinking habits if we were to use more of a stick in terms of high penalties for those caught supplying liquor to those under the minimum alcohol purchasing age? 
A number of members have asked me to move an instruction to the select committee to allow it to consider matters beyond the scope of the bill. It may well be that the public submissions identify changes that the select committee believes to be desirable. In fact I think that is highly likely. If and when that happens I will seek to deal with the issues beyond the scope at that time—as I am sure that select committee members will—and I will be happy for amendments to be made in order to address the problem which is the harm done to youth by alcohol. 
I finish by thanking the Prime Minister for her support for this bill to proceed to the select committee. Of course there are no silver bullets to improving the alcohol-drinking culture. The bill proposes just three measures: on broadcast advertising on the supply to minors regulations and on the minimum purchasing age. Those have necessarily been drafted to try to secure as broad a support as is possible in an eight-party Parliament. I know that there are many other improvements that members will be able to put forward. 
I commend the House to allow the public of New Zealand the parents the caregivers and the voluntary workers in public health to be able to have their say on how this legislation can be improved. I commend members therefore to support this bill to proceed to the select committee.