Chauvel Charles: Alcohol Reform Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Chauvel Charles: Alcohol Reform Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 24 October 2012. Volume:685;Page:6151. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
: 
 I would like to make a contribution at this stage in the debate on the issue of local alcohol policies. The number of times that submitters came before the Justice and Electoral Committee and told the committee that they wanted to be able to have more input into and more influence over the availability and use of alcohol in their own communities was one of the most significant things that I took away from the experience of having sat on the select committee. 
First of all I think it is a positive thing that the Alcohol Reform Bill provides for local alcohol policies. Let me say that up front. But let me also echo some of the things that have been said already by previous speakers about how much better we could do in this area because of course the fundamental problem with the scheme of the bill when it comes to enabling local input on these matters is that local alcohol policies are not required to be operated by a territorial local authority. It is up to the authority whether it actually chooses to have a local alcohol policy. In other words what the Government is saying to local government is whether you decide to give your communities sufficient input and control over the use and availability of alcohol in your community is up to you. Whether you do it or not is not a concern of ours. It is up to you whether you decide to enable your communities in that way. That is the fundamental philosophical difference that I have with the Minister of Justice and the Government on this point. 
The problem as we know—and I think many members around the Chamber would concede this—is that in the communities where alcohol has the most devastating effect because of its misuse there will be an inverse relationship to the ability and capacity of people in those communities to influence their territorial local authorities. So making the existence of a local alcohol policy optional rather than requiring a territorial local authority to actually take into account local input on this question will be doubly disempowering in the communities where alcohol abuse has the most devastating effect. 
That is why I have put forward Supplementary Order Paper 109. The most fundamental change that it would effect as far as the bill is concerned is that it would make it a requirement of every territorial local authority to operate a local alcohol policy. Every authority would be required to take into account the views of their communities to actively go out and seek those views and to then incorporate those views in a policy that applied to licensing decisions made in that particular area. I think a fundamental weakness of the bill is that it makes that exercise entirely optional. It says that well maybe communities should have input and maybe they should not; that is a local matter. If we are serious about giving communities some power and some influence over the abuse of alcohol availability then we really have to make it an expectation of every local authority that it will deal with licensing decisions according to a local alcohol policy that is carefully consulted on in its communities and that takes into account the views of those communities. It is a major deficiency that the legislation fails to do that. 
The second change that my Supplementary Order Paper would make is to insert a provision in the bill that forbids territorial local authorities from dealing with any matter other than licensing in the local alcohol plan. Authorities can deal with the location of licensed premises by reference to broad areas. They can deal with the location of licensed premises by reference to proximity to premises or facilities of particular kinds. They can deal with the question of whether further licences should be issued for premises in the district concerned. They can deal with maximum trading hours. They can deal with the issuing of licences subject to discretionary conditions and they can deal with one-way-door restrictions. Those are all matters that can be provided for in a local alcohol policy if the particular local authority entity decides to even operate one of these policies. But if the authority does not none of these matters have to be referred to in licensing decisions. 
And even if it does it is restricted to those matters. Again this is a problem. The local authority concerned should be able to consider wider health promotion aspects around the availability of alcohol. To restrict the authority in this way is in my view to be artificially restrictive about the sorts of drivers of alcohol abuse that exist in communities. So the territorial local authorities not only should have to operate such a plan; they should not be restricted to these licensing matters in the text of the plan. They should be able to deal with much broader issues in the policies themselves. 
The third change that my Supplementary Order Paper would make would be to strengthen the content of required local alcohol policies by enabling the consideration of local demographics and socio-economic factors that operate in the particular communities. 
The fourth change would be to enable much greater community input into these policies when they operate. So there is an express requirement in my Supplementary Order Paper that local iwi and hapu be consulted when a local alcohol policy is being put together. I do think that would be a real improvement as far as ensuring that we have well-consulted-over documents that actually operate for the benefit of all of their communities when they are put in place. 
Finally there is a requirement that where there are appeals from decisions about the creation of a local alcohol policy those appeals should be heard in public. There should be a high degree of transparency around the way in which the policies are put together and the way in which appeals about their contents should be heard. 
I am aware that the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper makes some changes to the text of the bill and goes some way to meet some of the concerns that I have expressed but it does not go the whole way and I do think that the changes that I am advocating for would be beneficial. In the same vein Supplementary Order Paper 80 in the name of the Green member of Parliament Kevin Hague would make some very good improvements in this area. He recognises that the mandatory nature of local alcohol policies would go a long way to enabling communities particularly at-risk communities to have a real say about the availability of alcohol in those communities and he notes as I do that that is actually the recommendation of the Law Commission—another area where the Government has departed from the very wise recommendations that were made right at the beginning of this process around enabling communities to control what goes on in them. Mr Hague’s Supplementary Order Paper as does mine also tries to facilitate and enable better community input into the putting together of local alcohol policies. 
So what I want to do is not only to advocate for my Supplementary Order Paper for the reasons that I have set out but also to commend to the Committee the terms that exist in his Supplementary Order Paper because either of them would really make for much better local input into the way in which alcohol is available and consumed in the communities where the abuse of this substance is such a problem as we heard at the select committee hearing.