Kedgley Sue: Liquor Advertising (Television and Radio) Bill — First Reading 
Kedgley Sue: Liquor Advertising (Television and Radio) Bill — First Reading 
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SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 We have created a culture in New Zealand where we demonise some drugs such as cannabis which we have just been talking about and we tolerate encourage and indeed glamorise other drugs such as alcohol. It reminds me of when someone came to a select committee once and said that in Saudi Arabia it was exactly the opposite. They demonise alcohol and cut off people’s arms for drinking alcohol but they tolerate accept and indeed encourage cannabis. So each culture has drugs that they demonise and drugs that they glamorise; in ours it is alcohol we glamorise and cannabis we demonise. The thing is though that it is extraordinary that alcohol is a highly intoxicating highly addictive drug and nobody can dispute the fact that it causes huge harm huge damage in our society. Indeed when we look at the statistics we have to say that alcohol must be one of the most destructive drugs in New Zealand. It contributes to over 1000 deaths a year. I mean that is phenomenal—1000 deaths a year. Others have mentioned that. It contributes to 25 percent of fatal injuries and 20 percent of serious crashes on our roads and half of all serious crimes in New Zealand are related to alcohol. That is incredible. 
If we were serious about violent crime—the Minister of Justice and so many others in this House are going on about violent crime and saying that we must reduce violent crime in our society—then one of the first things we would do is reduce the accessibility the overwhelming accessibility of alcohol and the aggressive marketing of alcohol all over New Zealand. Yet what is happening is quite to the contrary. This addictive and psychoactive drug is sold in virtually every dairy and supermarket in New Zealand and even in dairies right outside schools—dairies that are carefully positioned right outside schools. In fact there are liquor outlets right outside schools. Alcohol is available everywhere in New Zealand and it is marketed aggressively by the liquor industry but particularly to young people with all the alcopops and so forth. Every time we go to sports fields we see alcohol advertising as we do at rugby matches with the All Blacks and so forth. But all of that aggressive advertising normalises and legitimises alcohol. 
So it is supremely ironic that on one hand in this Parliament we constantly wring our hands and deplore the fact that adolescent New Zealanders are drinking alcohol at younger and younger ages. We deplore the binge-drinking culture in New Zealand yet at the same time we do absolutely nothing to reduce the accessibility the incredible accessibility of alcohol and its aggressive advertising. 
Members of the Government and the ACT Party are constantly banging the anti-crime drum and going on and on about violent crime. They were only too happy to lock people up: “Let’s build more prisons. Let’s have three strikes and they’re out. Let’s do anything to reduce violent crime but we won’t do anything about the aggressive advertising of alcohol in New Zealand which fuels and contributes to the fact that alcohol contributes to 50 percent of crime in New Zealand.” 
The Minister Dr Coleman admitted that his party’s opposition to this bill is because free-to-air broadcasters depend on liquor advertising for their survival. He effectively said that we cannot hurt the revenue of broadcasters so we cannot support this bill. We cannot do anything about advertising. Dr Coleman needs to understand as Associate Minister of Health that the primary concern in this Parliament should be not the revenues of broadcasters and advertisers but public health concerns. Frankly I was appalled that the main reason the National Government is opposing this is the influence of the alcohol and advertising industries. Clearly the alcohol and advertising industries exert huge power and influence over this Parliament and that is the reason why the excellent bill of 2 weeks ago was voted down in this House.