Lees-Galloway Iain: Alcohol Reform Bill — First Reading 
Lees-Galloway Iain: Alcohol Reform Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:668;Page:15272] 
IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North) 
: 
 I have been looking forward to my opportunity to take a call on the Alcohol Reform Bill. I would like to start my contribution this afternoon by congratulating the Hon Lianne Dalziel on her vision and on her role in referring these issues to the Law Commission and asking it to undertake a comprehensive review of our liquor legislation. I also congratulate the Law Commission on that review and on the very detailed report it brought back to Parliament. I acknowledge my colleague from the Manawatu the Hon Simon Power for his role in maintaining that progress and for bringing this legislation to the House. 
I have been sitting in the House listening very closely throughout the debate. I have heard a lot of not quite opposition to the bill but reluctant support for it. The reason why the support is reluctant is not due to what is in the bill. For the most part the changes this bill makes are positive will be accepted by the community and will be looked on historically as good moves. But they are slim pickings from what the Law Commission suggested we need to do. They are not the total package that Lianne Dalziel set out to achieve when she referred these issues to the commission some years ago. 
After listening to the debate I need to refer to some of the comments that have been made by some members. Nick Smith attacked Lianne Dalziel for her superb passionate and comprehensive contribution in this debate. 
Simon Bridges 
: Angry and boring. 
IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY 
: Did a member say it was boring? 
Simon Bridges 
: She managed to be both angry and boring. 
IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY 
: Lianne Dalziel’s contribution comes from years of dedication to this issue and from research and looking at the evidence. Yet Nick Smith turned round to her and said that he found her speech ironic because of comments she made in the early 1990s in relation to the Sale of Liquor Act 1989. I would think that a member like Lianne Dalziel having spent 20 years in Parliament would be able to learn over her time here and that is clearly what she has done. She may have changed her position on things but that is because she has looked at the evidence developed her position and learnt as she has gone along. Clearly Nick Smith has not. Nick Smith’s position remains rooted in the early 1990s not just on this issue but also on many others. 
I listened closely to Heather Roy because I was interested to see how the ACT Party would be voting on this. She referred to prohibition in this bill. What absolute rubbish. That could not be further from the truth. Prohibition is a failed policy. We know that. This bill goes nowhere near prohibition. She also referred to the 6 o’clock swill. This bill does not revert us back to the 6 o’clock swill either and nobody is suggesting that that is where we should go. She talked about how legislation cannot achieve change then offered virtually nothing in terms of what we should do to achieve change. She had no ideas and no suggestions. She said that we have a problem and society should change it but offered absolutely no initiatives on how we could go about doing that. 
Heather Roy mentioned education. Education feels kind of good because we think that if we educate people then the people—somebody else—will change their behaviour and fix the problem without us having to do anything. Well that is a nice idea but the evidence tells us that education in isolation achieves very very little. It is sad and I wish it was not true but it is a fact. She also talked about parents modelling good behaviour. That is true. There is empirical data that tells us that parents who model good behaviour pass it on to their children. But what should we do for parents who are not modelling good behaviour? Nothing according to the ACT Party; we should just tell them off for being bad people. The fundamental point that the ACT Party does not address in this debate is that with alcohol just like with any other substance we are talking about addiction. Addiction gets in the way of the ACT Party’s mantra of personal choice because addiction takes away one’s ability to have personal choice one’s ability to make rational decisions and basically one’s individual rights. For parents who are not modelling good behaviour we need to have initiatives in place to support them to change their ways. 
This is where I come to some of the things that really are missing from this bill and from this debate. Simon Power referred to a balance. He said that this bill is a balance between the harms and the benefits of alcohol. I think what the Government is trying to achieve is a balance between the evidence that tells us what we should do and the politics. That is the balance this Government is trying to achieve. What we should be doing is passing evidence-based legislation and using evidence-based initiatives to tackle the alcohol problem and curb the harm which is what the Law Commission called on us to do. There are three aspects to dealing with any substance abuse problem: supply reduction demand reduction and harm reduction. This bill focuses on some aspects of supply reduction. 
At the same time we need to look at the whole package of how we achieve demand reduction and harm reduction at the same time. Those two matters are health matters. The way that Parliament operates saddens me a little. It is a necessary thing but that this bill will be referred to the Justice and Electoral Committee overlooks the fact that the Health Committee could have a huge role in this as well. This is a health matter as well as a justice matter. It is sad that we cannot form some sort of super committee to deal with this bill that has members from the Justice and Electoral Committee and the Health Committee but that is not the way Parliament works. I accept that and that is fine. In terms of health and in terms of demand and harm reduction the Government is going in the opposite direction to the direction it says it is taking us in with this bill. 
We have seen cuts to alcohol and other drug treatment funding. We have seen mental health and alcohol and drug treatment removed from the Government’s priorities. That means that when the Government puts the screws on district health boards and says that it will limit the amount of money they have available they have to find places to cut funding and things to cut. They take their lead from the Government and if something is not a priority to the Government then it is not a priority to the district health boards either. We have seen cuts to drug and alcohol treatment services. They are the types of services that would help us make the changes that the ACT Party is calling for. The Government says that it is interested and concerned about alcohol harm in our community but although it is trying to take us a small way down the right path with this bill it is taking us in completely the opposite direction with its cuts to health funding. 
I will pass on a small anecdote to the House about price because that is something that is missing from this debate. The Government has wussed out and deferred the issue of price until after the election. I went to the supermarket some time ago— 
Hon Steven Joyce 
: Oh really? 
IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY 
: The Minister may be interested to know that I have been to the supermarket several times. I had an epiphany about the price issue when I bought a few bottles of wine. I did not buy them from the alcohol section but from the end of one of the aisles where they were promoted. Those bottles of wine cost $9.99 each. I took a few bottles home we had a barbecue with friends and the bottles were drunk very responsibly. Everybody went home happy and there were no problems the next day. For $30 I was able to provide alcohol for a small function but for that same $30 a teenager or anybody could have consumed all of that wine and got themselves into a real mess for not a lot of money. I thought that OK I appreciate being able to purchase that alcohol for a low price but I wonder what the effect is on the community. 
Government members may laugh about this anecdote but here is the crux of this issue: what is the effect on the community and what is my responsibility as a consumer of alcohol to my community? My community bears the cost of harmful alcohol use and alcohol abuse. Although I might appreciate the convenience and the low cost of low-price alcohol I need to think about the effect on my community. I look forward to the select committee process when many submitters will talk about that and other issues.