Flavell Te Ururoa: Alcohol Reform Bill — Procedure In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Flavell Te Ururoa: Alcohol Reform Bill — Procedure In Committee 
[Sitting date: 23 October 2012. Volume:685;Page:6058. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki) 
: 
 Kia ora tatou katoa i tenei ahiahi. By way of some introductory remarks I want to state from the outset that the Maori Party believes that we must really focus on the long-term outlook the intergenerational shift that will ensure that we reduce alcohol-related harm right across the whanau. We advocated for significant investment in the sector targeted at alcohol treatment services and were pleased that the Government moved in this way with a $10 million announcement in the Budget. We also support the proposal for a cross-agency advertising and sponsorship review as recommended by the Law Commission. We are particularly supportive of the Law Commission’s advice that alcohol advertising and sponsorship could be addressed by limiting product information to a plain pack format which is basically what Tariana Turia has done in respect of tobacco prevention. 
We can say from the start as well that we are however disappointed that local alcohol plans remain voluntary. The liberalisation of alcohol sales—opening up supermarket sales extending opening hours reducing the minimum purchase age to 18 and the increased number and density of outlets—have all compounded the serious problem that other members in the Chamber have talked about not only in this debate but also in the first debate in respect of the purchase age. A comparison made by Te Runanga o Ngai Tahu to the regime of environmental management is particularly helpful I think. It was their contention that the rights protected under article 2 of Te Tiriti o Waitangi include the capacity to protect and preserve the well-being of our greatest taonga our people and accordingly it was their view that iwi have the right to be decision makers on the supply and regulation of alcohol within their respective ancestral lands. The proposal to enable iwi input into local decision-making will be proposed as one of the key amendments under my name to the clauses on local alcohol policy. 
The Maori Party describes alcohol as a social hazard and argues for measures against hazardous alcohol intake across all layers of influence. It would be no secret—or maybe it is—that Maori have one of the few societies where the history prior to the arrival of the settler group was free of alcohol. Indeed a term that our people use for alcohol is “waipiro”. “Waipiro” literally means “stinking water”. From that time to now there has obviously been a clear impact on Maori communities across the board and from the Maori Party’s perspective we take this particular issue along with tobacco and indeed gambling under the banner if you like of social hazards that we definitely need to have a look at. In that regard as previous members have mentioned under my name we have tabled a number of amendments which the Committee will consider over the length and breadth of this debate. These include making the proximity to a school a criterion for determining liquor licences; adding Maori representation to the local committees; limiting the visibility of advertising for the product in grocery stores and grocery shops so that it is not visible in the store but alcohol is able to be sold; eliminating advertising and sponsorship of alcohol except inside on-licenced premises; and a sinking-lid policy on off-licence retailers within territorial authorities in terms of talking about the replacement of existing stores being the only exception and only if there is not another liquor store within 5 kilometres. There are other amendments that I will not discuss right now but will come back to during the debate. 
I did want to say that the bigger picture on alcohol harm is that it is not just what we drink it is how and whom we drink with. It takes a community. One of the recommendations that came up from  
He Tete Kura: Maori Addiction Treatment 1980-2008 
 tells us that there are three specific aspects to how we can work together to reduce and prevent alcohol-related harm. I will just mention those to close off. No. 1 is to build strengthen and maintain links between whanau hapu and iwi communities and the sector around the country. Secondly we need to explicitly foster a collective whanau approach in the Maori addiction treatment sector and workforce. Thirdly we need to work more as a unified and collective sector to achieve whanau ora for Maori with addiction-related issues and problems. We would hope that all of these things do come together as we complete this debate over the next day or so. Certainly we in the Maori Party believe that the Supplementary Order Papers that we are advancing have some merit to them as do a number—