Catchpole Brent: Sale of Liquor Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
Catchpole Brent: Sale of Liquor Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:616;Page:12342] 
BRENT CATCHPOLE (NZ First) 
: 
 I would like to deal with two main aspects of the bill: first providing existing licensing trusts with the option to reconstitute themselves as community trusts; and secondly the amendments to the conditions applying to off-licences so that wineries can sell their own wines on Easter Sunday. 
Let us look at the first provision which gives licensing trusts the option to reconstitute themselves. Licensing trusts set up under earlier Acts of Parliament have continued to go before the electorate to find out whether people wanted them to continue as licensing trusts. Some licensing trusts have reached a point whereby they want to change their trading aspects and reconstitute themselves as community trusts. A community trust has a much wider means of trading and also has the ability to trade outside its limited area. 
Unfortunately an anomaly exists in this part of the bill. The principal Act the Sale of Liquor Act has a list of existing licensing trusts in its third schedule. That list will have to be amended once a licensing trust on that list reconstitutes itself as a community trust and that is one area we will concentrate on during the Committee stage. 
Let us now look at the amendments to the ability of wineries to trade on Easter Sunday. The bill simply reconstitutes a situation that existed prior to an amendment in 1999 that for some reason suddenly dropped the ability of wineries to sell alcohol on Easter Sunday. That is a sad situation because as a previous speaker mentioned wineries are a huge attraction for tourists in this country. At this time of the year there are a lot of tourists and particularly over Easter local people will also travel—effectively becoming tourists in different areas. They will want to try the different wares of the wineries. Unfortunately under the current Act wineries are precluded from selling wine on both Good Friday and Easter Sunday which means that tourists in this country do not have an opportunity to try the very very fine award-winning wines of many of those wineries. The restriction put on by the Commerce Committee is that wineries must sell their own wines. That includes wines made from grapes grown on their properties but sent out for processing and brought back to the wineries. Those wines will be OK. We will explore that area further in the next stage of the bill. 
Another area I would like to look at quickly is the matter of young people being sent into pubs to try to trap publicans into selling them wine when they are under age. I must admit that that is straight-out entrapment. Unfortunately this bill has missed a golden opportunity to rectify a major problem in this country. We should have taken the opportunity in this bill to raise the drinking age and restore it back to 20. That would raise the age of young people found drinking on the streets. It is a shame that 12 and 13-year-olds are out on the streets drunk and it is a pity that this bill will not in any way rectify that situation. 
I agree with the amendment on the Supplementary Order Paper with regard to food condiments that contain liquor. It is an anomaly and the practice has grown. I warn that many so-called food condiments particularly those used by Chinese restaurants are purely wines. They do not necessarily contain salt additives as the Minister suggested. We need to ask the Minister to have the labelling of some of those condiments checked because it is an area where there could be a major problem. 
I have an amendment with regard to the reconstitution of licensed trusts. The bill contains a provision that when licensing trusts reconstitute themselves as community trusts they must notify the public. Notification is important because it signals a complete change of a trust’s structure. The amendment I have tabled reduces the percentage of electors requesting a poll from 15 percent to 7.5 percent. New Zealand First feels that it should be made easier to hold a poll because 15 percent is quite a large number of local people to get a poll running and 7.5 percent would make it easier. We feel that 7.5 percent is the figure that should be substituted in the bill. I will raise that matter again during the Committee stage. 
In summary the provisions in this bill that enable licensed trusts to reconstitute themselves are sound but we should be aware of the need to have the percentage required to hold a poll lowered. In respect of the ability of wineries to be able to sell wine on Easter Sunday the bill corrects an anomaly that should not have occurred in the first place. Finally we do not think the situation is satisfactory whereby children under the age of 18 are sent into pubs by the police to entrap those selling liquor.