Mark Ron: Customs and Excise (Alcoholic Beverages) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
Mark Ron: Customs and Excise (Alcoholic Beverages) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:608;Page:5387] 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 I rise to make clear once again that New Zealand First will be voting against this bill. Having listened to the range of speeches in the first and second readings I say that I do not think anyone listening to them could accept any of the arguments that the various Government members in their very short speeches have made to justify this bill because they have all contradicted each other. 
I have heard people say that this bill is all about harm minimisation. I have heard a Government member say that she voted against the lowering of the drinking age and that this measure is the way to minimise the harm done to our young people. That member knows full well that the greatest harm was done when the drinking age was lowered. If that member were true to herself she would be enforcing the introduction into this House of my member’s bill which seeks to put the drinking age back to 20. As I look around this Chamber I see members on the Government benches who voted against that legislation and who in their very hearts and being do not support this bill as being the panacea that will minimise the harm caused by the teenage drinking problems we face. 
Let us just remind ourselves who said that the lowering of the drinking age had contributed towards the types of problems we are seeing. The people who said it were the people who staff our accident and emergency services all over the country—nurses doctors and medical attendants. They are at the frontline picking up young people who are blotto and out of their minds. Putting them into ambulances are the St John Ambulance people. They would much rather see the drinking age raised than see this bill passed. Who else is there? Doctors have said on countless occasions—and I have read it in community papers from Whangarei in Northland all the way down to the south—that they believe that the way to minimise harm is to put the drinking age back up. Fire Service people say the same thing; they are tired of cutting these people out of cars that have been in accidents. 
In respect of the Maori MPs their body language says it all. It does not matter what the Hon John Tamihere read off the piece of paper given to him as the introductory second reading speech. I saw his body language as he went out of here. He does not believe in the slightest that this bill will have the effect of minimising the harm done to the young Maori people whom the Waipareira Trust has been trying to help. Speaking of the Waipareira Trust is it not that trust that helps low-income people manage their budgets? What will it have to do now? It will have to manage budgets that are minus the money that has been taken out to pay for the alcohol that those adults—not children not teenagers but adults—had previously been able to buy at a reduced cost. Those budgets will have to be rewritten because the cost of that alcohol is going up. It is the same for the elderly; the Waipareira Trust helps a large number of elderly people. 
Is it not a joke? I have heard a lot from Government members about how this measure will help people. Well get real! We are now seeing this Government for what it is: a Chardonnay-sipping bunch of spa-bath socialists who continue to hammer working-class people. Who got whacked when petrol prices went up? 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: Say that again. 
RON MARK 
: Chardonnay-sipping spa-bath socialists—that is what they are. Who got whacked when they put up the price of petrol? Working-class people who were trying to drive to work. Who got whacked when cigarette prices went up? Working-class people who just want to enjoy a fag—not that type of fag; a cigarette type of fag—at smoko. Who will now get whacked when the price of cheap booze goes up? Working-class people. 
I tell members that those working-class people have long since started talking about this Labour Government. It does not have one freezing worker in its ranks. It does not have one truck-driver— 
Taito Phillip Field 
: I was. 
RON MARK 
: Welcome Taito Phillip Field! We know why he is not a Minister. It is because he is an ex - freezing worker. That Government does not have any working-class people in its ranks. I was at a Labour fundraising do the other night. I will tell members the sorts of things I am hearing in Belfast— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Come back to this bill please. 
RON MARK 
: Tax hikes like this from this Government hit working-class people. The reason those members do it and believe they are doing the right thing is that there are no working-class people in their ranks. There are academics tutors—[ 
Interruption 
] Harry Duynhoven may be a working-class person but that is why he is not a Cabinet Minister. And at the end of the day he was a teacher. This House sits here and deliberates on a bill like this from the perspective of academics theoreticians and philosophers. They are Chardonnay-sipping spa-bath socialists who have never lifted a crescent or a meat cleaver or driven a truck in their entire lives. 
Out there tomorrow the rest of the working-class people will know what this Government wants. It wants their money. One of their last refuges a cheap bit of booze is being taken off them. Is this measure going to hit the ready-to-drinks the alcopops that that lot over there so vigorously tell me it will hit? No it will not. Therefore will it reduce teenage drinking? I will tell members what this measure will do. Teenagers who would have bought that cheap booze and diluted it with Coke will now not put Coke in it. That is what will happen. They will make their more expensive drink go further. This measure will drive teenagers to drink those spirits which they will now pay more for with less Coke or L & P added because they will not be able to buy as much to get their binge buzz. Members should think about it 
David Benson-Pope 
: What? 
RON MARK 
: I am going to help that member over there and if I have to ask for an extension of time to do it I will. The chief Government whip who has been so rude throughout the whole of the proceedings setting a wonderful standard for his MPs to follow is puzzled. Let me explain it again. A young person who has only so much money to spend will not now be able to afford to buy Coke. Young people will have to go without the Coke. In fact because the booze will cost them more they will be less inclined to dilute it as they share it around their mates. What will the result be? Drunker kids for the same amount of booze for the same dollars. The only difference will be in the coffers of the Minister of Finance. He will have more money and that is really what it is all about. 
What else is it about? It is about keeping Helen Clark off the front page tomorrow because she had such a lousy day in the House. This bill is being debated in order to get the media to rerun page 1 so that the lousy day that the Government had—that Minister Goff and Prime Minister Clark had—at question time is now shunted off to one side and the focus goes on this bill. 
I predict that young people around the country will scoff at this bill and they will scoff at this Government which is nothing more than a revenue-gathering exercise.