Bishop ChrisCHRIS BISHOP (National—Hutt South): Thank you very much Mr Speaker. Well this bill has had a somewhat tortured process into the Parliament. I think it's the number two bill because we had a bit of an error with the original drafting of the bill. But now we find just at the end of the member's speech introducing this bill that a Supplementary Order Paper has been dropped on to the House which presumably has been dropped there in order to get New Zealand First over the line to support the bill otherwise it would have failed because of course the National Party will be voting against it.The other point I want to make just at the start is the reference to the Governance and Administration Committee. It is a bit strange I have to say. Traditionally alcohol bills have gone to the Justice Committee. They've been treated as justice matters. I'm not just saying that because I'm on the Justice Committee. So I do find that a bit odd and I would urge the member to rethink that. I don't know why she's decided to nominate it to send it to the Governance and Administration Committee. I've got to say that the Justice Committee is very busy as my colleague Greg O'Connor will know with the End of Life Choice Bill we're about to start the inquiry into the 2017 general election and we've got domestic violence legislation before us. But you know we're a hard-working busy committee. We'd welcome the business if the member wishes to refer it to us but we'll wait and see.I want to make a few points about this bill. The first is just to say that the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act makes it a lot harder to get a liquor licence. If you want any evidence of that I invite members to go and talk to their local communities and some of the businesses out there that have struggled to get liquor licences for quite stupid reasons. In the Hutt which Louisa Wall made mention of in her speech there is a business called La Bella Italia—many members may have been out there—a great Italian restaurant which also has a grocery area that sells Italian wine. Antonio the proprietor there is very fond of doing a bit of maître d'ing and introducing people to new Italian wines at the same time as people are having a meal. People like to go and pick up some of the wine they've tried. Because of the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act he's found it very difficult to get renewals for his liquor licence. He's now had to set up a scenario where the liquor is essentially behind a wall inside the restaurant. If you like the wine you're trying you then have to go to an iPad set up in the corner of the restaurant input the wine that you've tried buy it online using a credit card go outside and come back into the restaurant using a side door to pick up the wine you've bought. It's just ridiculous. That is essentially because of the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act.Examples abound all over the place: the railway station New World which members may have gone to when they've taken the train out to the mighty Hutt Valley—or to Johnsonville God forbid. They found it very difficult to get a liquor licence because they had I think beer bottles or wine bottles on display through a window. So commuters going to the trains would see the beer bottles. I mean you know shocking apparently that you'd see—Stuart Smith: Where's the harm?CHRIS BISHOP: Exactly. Stuart Smith says Where's the harm?" but there were objections made to it on the basis that busy commuters would become binge drinkers or something because they could see a bottle of Montana sauvignon blanc or something like that. So the point is it's a lot harder to get a liquor licence.The second point is that it's also a lot harder to get renewals. The member in charge of the bill talked about how that should be the purpose of the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act and she's exactly right. She mentioned section 131 of the Act. That compels licensing authorities to take into account the suitability of applicants the days upon which the licence will be operating the layout of the store what else they sell—do they sell other things? Of course it allows the police and the local medical officer of health and the manner in which the applicant sells the liquor—essentially it compels the licensing authorities to take all of those things into account. The net effect of that is that it's a lot harder to get a renewal and that's very important. So it's not the case as the member sort of implied that existing licences that existed before the 2012 Act came into effect are kind of grandfathered in with no rules whatsoever. That's not the case. She said "A licence is a licence is a licence." That's true and when you go for renewal of a licence it's a lot harder to get a renewal than it was to get one in the first place because of course the old Act applied.So then we come to this bill. So what does it do? So the current law—and it's a very finely grained bill. That's the other point to note. This is really down in the weeds and the minutiae of the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act. That's OK. Parliament deals with that sort of stuff all the time but it's really right on the cusp of—right on the margins of the law. The current law says licensing authorities must not take into account the consistency of a licence with the local alcohol policy and what this bill does is it allows the licensing authority to take into account the consistency.I do just want to point out to Louisa Wall that I think there is an inconsistency actually in the bill itself. So if you look at clause 4 of her bill under the subheading "Purpose" it says "The purpose of this Act is to amend the principal Act to provide that in considering …"—etc.—"a licensing authority or licensing committee must take into account any inconsistency between any location and density matters". But then if you look at replacement section 133(1) which is the bit she's proposing set out in clause 5 it says "may refuse to renew a licence".So why is the National Party voting against this bill? Well we're not convinced it's needed. As I said before the existing law already allows for a large degree of latitude by district licensing authorities in considering whether or not to grant a renewal of a licence. So if this goes to the select committee we would like to hear evidence as to how exactly it's needed. It looks like it is going to go to the select committee—I'd like it to go to the Justice Committee because I'd like to see its evidence but it's going to go to the Governance and Administration Committee possibly. But I would like to see at the select committee evidence of exactly what problem we are trying to solve. What actually is the mischief this bill is trying to remedy because it's not clear to me and it's not clear to members on this side of the House exactly what the problem is there in the current law.The current law significantly tightens the law around renewal of licences and the issuing of licences itself. It grants to local communities the ability to put into place local alcohol policies—and Louisa Wall talked about how many communities have done that and there is a high degree of interest in that. But we're not clear on this side of the House exactly what problem Louisa Wall is trying to solve with this bill. We think the current Act strikes the right balance between allowing people who wish to purchase alcohol and wish to access alcohol and preventing alcohol-related harm. It's been in place for only a couple of years now. We're not clear what the mischief is and because of that we won't be voting for it."