Macindoe Tim: Alcohol Reform Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Macindoe Tim: Alcohol Reform Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 06 December 2012. Volume:686;Page:7301. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West) 
: 
 I would like to take another call on the Alcohol Reform Bill and I want to begin by utterly rejecting the offensive suggestion that this Government is in the pockets of the hospitality industry. First of all I make the point that the hospitality industry did not welcome the amendment I put forward seeking to raise the purchase age for alcohol. Secondly I would make the point that we are looking at a range of ways to reduce alcohol-related harm and we are tackling head-on the crisis that Mr Sio has just talked about unlike the previous Labour Government which had 9 years and did little and now talks tough in Opposition. 
The liquor industry is the body that is promoting the idea of minimum pricing. That is because in large part it benefits members of the industry. They are the ones the retailers who will gain most from the introduction of minimum pricing. We want to ensure that we introduce measures that are effective in other ways. The industry has agreed to introduce a code on ready-to-drinks. But we have made it very clear to the industry that if it does not get it right we will regulate and we have put the provision into this bill so that one way or the other we will make sure that we get the whole culture around ready-to-drinks right. As I say those are just three examples I would give Mr Sio as to how the Government is quite clearly not in the pockets of the hospitality industry. I can assure him that I have not come under any pressure from the liquor industry as the chair of the Justice and Electoral Committee and if I had done I would have made it very clear that I was not interested and pushed it away. 
I want to move to some of the things that this bill does achieve rather than the things it does not. Quite clearly this bill will make it much harder for people to get access to alcohol but what we need to do is strike the right balance and not make it impossible for the many people who can use alcohol safely—and I would like to think I am in that group. We want to be able to ensure that alcohol can continue to be a social stimulant that is used responsibly but we must ensure that we tackle the many abuses of it that we see particularly but not exclusively amongst young people for whom binge-drinking is such a problem. 
I want to pay tribute to a man from my city of Hamilton Mr Cliff Turner whom I have got to know and respect deeply although I should say at the outset that I am sure he has never voted National in his life and I acknowledge the fact that he would like this bill to go further than it does. But I mention him in the context of what the bill is doing about advertising and the irresponsible promotion of alcohol. Mr Turner is a man well-known to the Advertising Standards Authority as someone who has regularly referred to the authority his grave concerns about the way that alcohol has been marketed in the past particularly to young people and the way it is glamorised and made to look as if it is an essential component of their lifestyle. I think he has done a stunning job and I would like to feel that he could take some credit for the fact that in this bill we have toughened up on irresponsible promotions. For instance no longer will it be possible to have those sorts of “come and drink as much as you like for as long as you like for as little as you like” functions in some of the pubs that cater particularly for the student population. We will no longer have advertising that is intentionally trying to glamorise alcohol particularly for young people. 
It will as a result of the measures in this bill be harder for young people to get drunk. It will as a result of the measures in this bill be possible for communities to have a much greater say about when and where alcohol is sold. It will no longer under this bill be possible for supermarkets to have alcohol displays in the entrances at every end of the aisles and in all of the places we see it at the moment so that it is in your face. That is going to change. It will under this bill be possible for alcohol-related penalties to be better enforced. 
As I say this is a bill that reflects a huge amount of work. The size of it tells you just how substantial it is. It is in large measure an implementation of the recommendations of the Law Commission that huge tome that it did such a great job on. The overwhelming number of the recommendations of the Law Commission are reflected in this bill and a few that were not are reflected in the Supplementary Order Paper that the Minister of Justice the Hon Judith Collins brought forward to toughen it further Supplementary Order Paper 132. I acknowledge the fact that there will always be division over certain measures and there will always be division as to where you draw the line but I am absolutely convinced that this bill is the best thing to happen in improving our dangerous alcohol culture in a very long period of time.