O'Rourke Denis: Alcohol Reform Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
O'Rourke Denis: Alcohol Reform Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 24 October 2012. Volume:685;Page:6157. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First) 
: 
 I would like to speak on Supplementary Order Paper 109 in the name of Charles Chauvel and I want to begin by repeating that New Zealand First has full faith in local democracy with regard to local alcohol policies. We therefore think that it is important that they be mandatory. In that respect I would like to say that I listened carefully to what the Minister in the chair the Minister of Justice said and I did not hear any real argument as to why they should not be mandatory. I did agree with a lot of what she said about the need for local policy-making as far as a local alcohol regime is concerned. As far as small local authorities are concerned I am absolutely convinced that each and every one of them could easily handle this function. After all they would have the support of Local Government New Zealand which often helps small local authorities with many things and it would certainly help them with these particular plans. 
Small local authorities can also look at what larger local authorities are doing and perhaps even work collaboratively with other local authorities in the development of their plans. Of course smaller authorities can in fact have smaller and simpler local policies. That would probably be quite appropriate for many of them. So I do not think it is any great imposition at all that we should make the development of local alcohol policies mandatory for smaller larger and in fact each and every one of New Zealand’s territorial local authorities. 
The situation regarding trading hours is a very good example of why local authorities must set them and why they must not be done by Parliament through the clause 44 default provision. If that is the case then there would be no need for any amendment to those default hours as proposed by some members. New Zealand First thinks that those default hours are far too liberal and should be more restrictive but we would not wish to do so by amending this legislation. Instead we would like to see local authority alcohol policies be mandatory. The fact that those liberal hours are liberal will encourage those local authorities to have a good look at what they think is appropriate for their particular districts. They need to reflect local needs. For example if you look at Queenstown you would expect that they would want local policies regarding trading hours to be more liberal whereas for example you might expect a city like Invercargill to have more restrictive hours. One would understand why and that would be very appropriate. But it is important that those two and all other local authorities actually set those hours themselves and not rely on default provisions as set out in clause 44. 
With regard to Supplementary Order Paper 109 I fully agree with Mr Chauvel’s proposal regarding clause 45. It would simply be redundant if the requirement for local authority alcohol policies was mandatory. The proposals he makes for clause 46 would also be appropriate. They are consequential. I note also he proposes the same amendment to clause 75 as Kevin Hague has proposed replacing in that clause the word “may” with the word “must”. That is as I said before all it takes and is most appropriate. 
Finally I would like to mention the amendments to clause 77 that Mr Chauvel has proposed. I believe they should be adopted as well. I like very much what he has done in respect of the policies that would be mandatory especially those in subclause (1) relating to the location of licensed premises with regard to broad areas and secondly the location of licensed premises by reference to proximity to premises or facilities of particular kinds. There has already been some debate about that. I also note the process for managing intoxicated people.